witness on al jazeera. al-jazeera this is the opportunity to understand the very different way we're there before something happens and we don't leave after. your child has their arms the whole robin in doha these are all top news stories u.s. president donald trump and russian leader vladimir putin have addressed the media in finland putin told trump it's time to properly discussed relations between the two countries that are holding a closed door meeting at the presidential palace in helsinki. russian the president donald trump said that he hopes for a fresh start with russia. i think we're really used together as. frankly we haven't been getting along very well for the last you been here too long and

it's getting close to two but i think we. were. saying and i'm sure you've heard. there's a campaign that getting along with russia is a good thing. and our other top story is up to the french team leaving moscow after the football world cup win on sunday now the team is heading back to paris where fans have been celebrating their victory on sunday and of course russia has been widely praised for the way it handled the world cup the shirt face many challenges head on including transporting fans across the country and managing rowdy crowds president vladimir putin says there were cyber security successes as well. there have been almost twenty five million cyber attacks and other criminal acts against the russian information or in the structure which have been intercepted all relating to the world cup in one way or another their trailer is reopening its embassy in ethiopia in a further sign of growing ties between the two longtime regional rivals eritrea as

president as i said where he is in the capital addis ababa for the opening ceremony . in iran protests that have been sweeping the southern part of the country have now entered a second week about two hundred demonstrators have gathered at the main entrance to iraq's about natural gas field as anger grows over unemployment and a lack of basic services meanwhile there are commodities porters reopened and is expected to be fully operational in the coming days three days after a shutdown by protesters on sunday two people were killed in a shooting in the city of somewhat south of the capital baghdad dozens of activists have been injured in demonstrations that started in basra last week. are said to asia pacific now where a new malaysian government is getting ready to officially be sworn in in kuala lumpur after the sixty one year rule of the same political party came to an end in the elections in may prime minister mahathir mohamad than one thousand new members of parliament have been sworn in their switch parties to lead a campaign against the incumbent prime minister najib resign no job is now facing

corruption charges over the disappearance of billions of dollars from the state fund. we have to show that to practice a constructive democracy previously when we were in government we got blamed a lot so now i had to mohammed's party has to show us the avenue for the opposition to raise concerns for example in today's parliament speaker issue. a community school in the occupied west bank is opening early for the new academic year as it faces the threat of israeli demolition the palestinian bedouin village of. jewel to be bulldozed to expand an illegal israeli settlement but earlier this month israel's supreme court issued a temporary injunction blocking the demolition the school's future remains uncertain as the israeli government pushes for villagers to relocate there a landfill site. the syrian government has launched more air strikes in rebel positions in the dera countryside. bombs hit the town of

tal harbor in the western part of the province in the province the government forces are trying to capture a strategic hill for a push into neighboring quintet or the syrian observatory for human rights is reporting fierce fighting on the ground control over both the provinces would consolidate president bashar assad's hold in the south. and italy has allowed hundreds of refugees and migrants stranded on two ships to disembark after negotiations with other e.u. countries it has blocks of their entry until other european nations agreed to take in nearly four hundred fifty people on board prime minister just because he says france germany malta spain and portugal will each take fifty refugees from the ship many of them are originally from eritrea those were the headlines about with more news in half an hour here on al-jazeera next it's the system to stay with us.

i wouldn't blow it up. and. if. so it kind of forced me to become a man of a young age it was kind of like either you would call up water dish treats all the streets became a bar to streets so finally i was introduced to the fast money when i say fast money's no selling drugs that on one of my being you know the old me to stop and you know they say you're innocent until proven guilty as well as your proven innocent. since. the american criminal justice system enforces our laws and keeps watch over a person. who is watching the system. use my camera for twenty years to knock down doors and pursue the truth just now we're going inside the american

criminal justice system from law enforcement to elected officials the court system the corrections to find out if justice is being served. here in new york city heading over to the bronx to meet a guy named michael torres who was arrested over two years ago for criminal possession of a small amount of marijuana and the reason this is important is that he is just one of about fifty thousand people who were arrested that year on similar marijuana charges under a policing strategy know this stop and frisk. in new york police have been stopping and frisking suspects for as long as there has been a police force but during the late one nine hundred ninety s. the giuliani administration made the tactic a central part of its aggressive policing. strategy we were allowing small things to get worse rather than the dealing with the earliest possible stage stop question

and frisk is an application of the broken windows theory a crime fighting strategy which argues that if a police force can cut down on petty crimes like vandalism and panhandling then bigger crimes like robbery and murder will be reduced there is just no question that stop question frisk has saved countless lives as recently as one thousand nine hundred new york city average more than six murders a day today we've driven that down to less than one murder a day but the policy ignited controversy and scandal and put the police department on the defensive protesters agree aggressive policing has reduced violent crime but they complain there's also brought an increase in police brutality. the majority of these stop and frisks occurred in high crime neighborhoods including certain precincts in the bronx like a man on the ground ok. in september two thousand and eleven michael torres was stopped by the police on the way to a job interview. so tell me what happened yeah like i was saying i was coming down

fordo solis one ninety seven and they kind of turned a corner there drawled this way and as soon as they saw me the right in for and when they came out from both ends of the call. didn't show me their bad. and i hope you when you say you know a police officer i asked them why did they stop he just said oh we just saw you walking too fast and we saw that suspicious he said come here and he grabbed me dragged me over here me against the wall and the pockets made me take. thought somebody. should not pass so check my paperwork that's what i'm going to an interview. with then my sweater and shook it. back on my sleeve i don't. well you know we i asked him am i going to be the best to fight and he said what do you think. it sounds like an open and shut case but

the marijuana possession law in new york mandates that the drugs must be in plain view it's my understanding that you didn't actually have the marijuana out not only was it a small amount but it was it wasn't open and it was you know. it was in my pockets so you disagree with that charge. so the marijuana project began in the summer of two thousand and eleven scott levy is an attorney for the bronx defender's office and represents michael torres he says the circumstances surrounding torres's arrest fit a familiar profile we essentially did a survey of every person charged with misdemeanor marijuana possession in a particular courtroom in the bronx for six months and we saw that really a huge number of these cases the police were manufacturing crime the police were arresting people for misdemeanor marijuana possession which is possessing marijuana in public view when our clients never possessed the marijuana public view they were

just in fact had it in their pocket or in a purse or in a backpack or something like that armed with all of this data the bronx defender's office decided to push back in identified fifty four individuals whose civil rights were allegedly violated during a stop and frisk procedure they filed suit against the city of new york over time we started calling them the fighters and we had fifty plus clients who were really just dedicated to challenging the police conduct in their cases and wanted to have their day in court but in the bronx the backlog of marijuana misdemeanor cases was so immense that a case that should have been handled within sixty days was stretching out for as long as two years the fighters began to lose their fight fifty three of them gave up and accepted their fate michael torres is the last man standing. to try to get the person tired of going back and forth to coit so they are. just anything so they take a plea they hope that you will eventually. just take it just take a plea deal and then. you know but

you know. everything in the system is built to create an incentive for him to plead guilty to accept what's being offered by the people and to just go on his way and forget that this ever happened the open cases disrupted michael tourism's life his last time at work and with it much needed money for his young family despite those pressures taurus has chosen to fight the system after two years of bureaucratic delays his court date is on the docket again. another community that embraced the broken windows theory is new haven connecticut the city might be known as the home of yale university but it's also ranked as the second most dangerous mid-size city in the country in an effort to combine a growing drug trafficking problem city and state officials created so-called drug free zones which are geographic sanctuaries around schools the premise behind the

law was that selling drugs near schools posed a danger to kids anyone caught with drugs inside one of these drug free school zones would get mandatory additional jail time added to their sentence an additional year for using drug paraphernalia two years for possession and three for drug sales drug free school zones became so popular that their radius increased from a thousand to fifteen hundred feet then daycare center and finally public housing. because of the geography of new haven it means basically virtually all of new haven with the exception of the golf course at yale university is a drug free zone and this results in mass incarceration of people because with a mandatory minimum sentence added on to the. sentence it means that most people even if they feel they're innocent will not risk going to to prison for extended

period of time so they plead out and this disproportionately of facts minority populations and impoverished people critics call it the geography of punishment. if you look at this map here this is a map simply of the schools and a city of no you can quickly notice that most of the city is covered when you add any housing projects and daycare centers what you know is there's almost no place in this city where if you deal drugs you don't get the enhanced penalty state senator gary holder winfield represents the city of new haven louise harvey a former inmate runs the nonprofit better way foundation together they're trying to do something that is counterintuitive to most suburban rural citizens in the state who believe that these laws protect children they actually want to shrink the size of the drug free zones in connecticut from fifteen hundred to two hundred feet you have a city that's all it has penalty there is no bearing ation in the punishment and so

if i'm a drug dealer and a variation punishment by keep me away from dealing drugs to children what incentive do i have to stay away from it so a law that was put into place to keep drug dealers away from children effectively in a city like new haven or hartford does nothing in other words if ninety five percent of your city is a drug free zone then anyone arrested for a drug violation whether it's for a misdemeanor or a felony is getting extra time added to their sentence but what really upsets those who advocate for the reduction of drug free school zones is the fact that if a person is arrested for drugs in a city like new haven they will get more time in prison than a person busted for the exact same crime in a suburb where as you can see on the map most of the land is not designated a drug free zone. i just want people to understand as a people. i think the drug free zones are getting reduced why would you want to reduce them the greater area for drug dealing with out that. there was

a report. and ninety nine percent of those arrested and drug free school zones where not near a school at school property there was one case in the last ten years and it was a woman who dropped her kid off at elementary school kids back from to shoot up that's not a deal. so they are trying to change the system holder's latest bill has just been introduced to the connecticut legislature and need to get a read on who is on board. and just when you're about to get it out there for whatever reason it comes tumbling back down if you look at what happened in two thousand it's really a perfect example of that they can choose not to deal drugs that's the choice we should be urging individuals in our communities to me we walked in we had the numbers we thought we were going to push. back i have not had

a parents come up to me and say please make it safer for these unscrupulous characters to get closer to my children. and for that reason i can't possibly support it and i know many of the residents of connecticut wish we don't support it as well. the bill died on the house floor. holder winfield and harvey are still determined to get it past. anyone who says getting rid of drug free school zones makes it more difficult to arrest someone for committing a crime uninformed. or. an educated about this. fifteen hundred. and that. ladies and gentlemen could very well be the solution to the

problem of our inner city youth being mowed down by drug hungry gangs of thugs carrying illegal guns thank you very much. intuitively you would think that a drug free zone around schools is a helpful thing but when you hear the other side and you hear how it's applied in a populous area like new haven you understand that it actually can hurt the people that the law is trying to serve. a man to write it up to produce a bar i want to learn about how this fifteen hundred foot school zone is affecting the neighborhood i'm i'm trolling absolutely shafique up do so bore grew up in new haven and is currently in new haven police department corrections officer he's also president of the national association of black law enforcement officers as a patrol officer for thirteen years he worked on these streets and has used the drug free zone enhancement penalty against dozens of suspects is commonly don't

that they're sold peaceful when you take a drug arrest you could literally take the life to authorities like so which one to call for just one but this one just because they're all with us here all of them if you're busy and it's over kill board the urban attribute of the individuals who live in those communities the world likely to at often times possess trust whatever reason if you got two bags of marijuana on you for your personal use two more bags of marijuana constitutes self. constants and they sell they say that sell it to sell even though it could be for personal use and even those persons bring back stuff we're selling is no doubt about. that look at what it costs to potentially address some body facility three packs of marijuana for the school use police time to lock them off your car shrink them in a local jail that is still roughly around forty thousand dollars a year for a person to sit in jail for fifty dollars or for drugs is not cost effective

because the trail the drug binders is endless. this is the oldest head this is sheldon. this is keep. and this is kyra barbara fair has lived worked and raised eleven children inside of a drug free zone and paid the price for it so how many of your children have gotten caught in this trap you know sean has a couple of times. i have seven sons and six of them have been arrested for drug charges. the only chars they've ever been arrested for drug charges and once you have that fifteen hundred feet within a school which are pretty much know that you're going to be found guilty because there's a mandatory minimum of three years with their barbers the first to admit that when our sons were guilty of a drug offense they deserved to serve time every time he got

a receipt he was actually guilty in many instances her sons were charged with possession after they were picked up by a police force that was aggressively clearing street corners but the fact that nearly every street corner in new haven was a drug free zone meant that her sons were automatically facing additional time in prison it was guilt by geography and you realize that a lot more people are being caught up in other people in possession of drugs they wouldn't get that enhanced sentence so in the more countrified parts of connecticut where it's from or why that would apply and in the more concentrated areas able to apply almost everywhere you go and then you lose faith in the justice system i know i have definitely in my experience i have lost any faith in the justice system being fair. that an hour and a half south in the bronx the case against michael moore is another reminder of how proactive policing policies designed to lower crime rates for everyone can result

in unconstitutional searches jam up the court system fill up the prisons and destroy the fabric of neighborhoods this is really quite a simple case as it says here in this motion. to dismiss prosecution claims that mr torres possessed marijuana in public view on september twenty sixth two thousand and eleven mr torres has consistently denied the allegation it adamantly contested the constitutionality of his arrest yet at every turn he has been denied any meaningful due process through the courts this guy has been waiting over two years for his day in court this has affected his work it has affected his psychological well being and his unfortunately one of tens of thousands of people who are arrested in the bronx under the stop and frisk programs. so many. jobs for

quite a long time this job has been a lifeline for tourists so every time he gets a call that his case is going to trial he has to choose between copping a guilty plea and serving a minimum of three months in jail or fighting the system and risking more jail time if he loses torres has chosen to fight and he loses a day's pay each time he shows up to court hoping his case will finally proceed. you know they start to think the case is bigger than what all i saw these panels. got in the new modification and we got deadlines that we got to meet so i can't put my deadlines because i've got a hope in. this case it's not going to change my life is just going to add on.

the system to stop. in new haven the system had one stop for the fair family prison i mean the first time i had to visit my son in prison. i didn't want him to see me cry so. i feel like i'm back here again. ok here. we go to barbara's son shelton knows full well how the police can use the state's drug zone law to turn a minor drug charge into a longer sentence. and i was home i was coming down the street i was walking in this direction in a car is driving on the side of me and they're trying to call me. a slow down look and ask. what it in asked me so i start to feel like i was about to be the victim of a robbery when the car got about here at least two people jumped out. and i was one that was a guy coming behind me kicking my back. down to the ground the next thing i knew i

heard him say words that. i knew they were the police. claims that he's innocent that he's the victim of a random drug sweep and that the two bags of marijuana were actually planted on him . with. him within fifteen or housing project and that was it. but unlike michael torres shelton believe that fighting the charge was a dead end when they put that charge on you god. is not you can do it has a mandatory time. and that extra enhancement on the sands means you've got to plead out because you're not going to risk eight ten twelve years in prison. shelton pled guilty and was given two years of probation he and his brothers are all out of jail now their mother barbara is glad they survived what do you say to people who think drug free zones around schools are

a good idea if the law was truly about that about keeping drug dealers away from kids would be i would be the first in line to say yes we need to. look behind with fifteen hundred feet. look at the outcome of what he does and then try to open your mind and think is something else going on. trying to protect. the scouts on a tourist case he has been coming to court since september two thousand and eleven so we're keeping our fingers crossed for tomorrow and hopefully he'll finally goes to court. today so i'm going to throw good to see you so i figure what we can do today is just talk through your case a bit you have been to court one two three four. five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve and tomorrow will be your thirteenth court appearance. always come to court prepared to fight the charges but the system is so

jammed up with stop and frisk cases that getting the right combination of been available judge courtroom and police officer to cross-examine has been impossible now my concern is what would happen if there were not very after so much time. do we continue to wait or what's going to happen if they're not ready or if there are no four was available you have to decide whether or not to plead guilty in order to end the case and get back to work or to continue to fight the case and try to vindicate your constitutional rights we filed a motion to dismiss in your case based on constitutional speedy trial grounds and that was denied even though your case has been open for two and a half years but i think tomorrow that we have a reasonable shot at actually having to go to trial we've prepared this case countless times. but i'll see in court tomorrow that. one of the reasons you were stopped is that new york city has this thing called stops first because you know i think in two thousand and eleven almost seven

hundred thousand people six hundred eighty four thousand people in new york city were stopped and frisked and i guess the theory of the police theory is that you know if you stop low level crime it will stop. bigger crime but what do you think about how do you they were a guy who is. just. like . you keeping the. people that. changing. not everyone in new york city agrees with torres that the n.y.p.d. stop and frisk policy is too aggressive or racially biased it's a complicated issue. when did we become the bad guy in this situation i think every kid in america myself included was told. they were probably go see a policeman well we've now created the atmosphere that the policeman is the bad guy

sergeant ed mullins is a current n.y.p.d. officer and president of the sergeants benevolent association he experienced firsthand the rise in the stop and frisk strategy the little crimes made a difference to big crimes we stop people we come up with things contraband whatever it was we could do we began to fish with a net and out with a poll window you go in and you know send somebody on their way into it and report any every incident or field report was recorded and placed into a massive computer system. searchable by precinct and capable of predicting patterns of criminal behavior. making these arrest all of. their work by the wayside and here's the challenge for critics of stop and frisk during the past twenty years the crime rate for major offenses like homicide rates robbery and assault have been cut by nearly seventy five percent in new york city for experienced cops like the rationale for keeping stop and frisk is quite simple.

it's. to school. in the dominican republic crossing national borders and cultural barriers to tell his son that now that italian. discovering filmmaking talent from around the viewfinder latin america follows a young man who will stop at nothing to secure an education. the crossing on al-jazeera. the pressure is on for fifteen thousand people posing an imminent threat to israeli snipers as they work to reform by top israeli diplomat hamas people not palestinian we'll get a right to know what they're saying they're not allowed in the bay are sending them to die it's a cultural traditions and when they come and attack us it's a war zone he was attacking maybe his son goes head to head with danny and i know

what israel is doing is deliberately choosing to slaughter house. algis if. you want your daughters there are still rubble and these are all top news stories u.s. president donald trump and russian leader vladimir putin have addressed the media in finland putin told trump it's time to properly discuss relations between the two countries that are holding a closed door meeting at the presidential palace in helsinki president trump said he hopes for a fresh start with russia. i think we have a great opportunity as together as. thankfully we have not been getting along very well for the list. not too long and it's getting close to two but they think we.

can say that. and there's a campaign they're getting on with russia is a good thing that. the french team are leaving moscow after the football world cup win on sunday the team is the heading back to paris where friend fans have been celebrating since of the victory thousands of them and now awaiting the team's arrival in the french. eritrea is reopening its embassy in ethiopia in a further sign of growing tolerance between the two longtime regional rivals eritrea's president is in the capital addis ababa for the opening ceremony. the syrian government has launched more air strikes at rebel positions in the dead are countryside. the bombs hit the town of in the western part of the province the syrian observatory for human rights is reporting fierce fighting on the ground. a community school in the occupied west bank is opening early for the new academic year as it faces the threat of israeli

demolition the palestinian bedouin village of tire the one who has been church will to be bulldozed to expand in the legal israeli settlement but earlier this month there are all supreme court issued a temporary injunction blocking the demolition the schools future remains uncertain as the israeli government pushes for villages to relocate a landfill site. in the new malaysian government is getting ready to officially begin work in kuala lumpur after a sixty one year rule of the same political party came to an end in elections in may prime minister mahathir mohamad and nineteen new members of parliament have been sworn in hard to switch parties to lead a campaign against the cheap resign those were the headlines question follow stories on our web site al-jazeera dot com back with a new in half an hour next on al-jazeera it's the system to stay with us.

am am. i . sergeant ed mullins is a current n.y.p.d. officer and president of the sergeants benevolent association he experienced firsthand the rise in the stop and frisk strategy the little crimes made a difference the big crimes we stop people we come up with. contraband whatever it was we could do i work and if i'm out on the street the middle of winter cold nights eight degrees out there's nobody on the street and i see an individual looking in call windows is that a crime it's not a crime he's allowed to do that because there's the street goes he has

a she walks back. he still hasn't committed a crime so i watch the end of stands on a corner looks different ways takes out a cigarette smoke a cigarette a couple minutes later walks into a building to commit a crime he did he lives in a building with a cigarette. same scenario now i say let me go stop. what are you doing. my name is x y z wale is a little. way of my girlfriend and say are you getting weapons that no i tossed and i quote a screwdriver a weapon no. but it doesn't but a screwdriver is a weapon it's a weapon if you want to use it as a weapon so i remove the screwdriver from what i'm talking to the community knowing what happens if you go to certain area. after he broke your window and destroyed the interior. with an arrest the public doesn't understand his scenario of how this happens at what point does the officer stop

a. police officers in connecticut are also defending a broken window strategy the use of drug free zones to fight the war on drugs here an effort is underway to shrink the size of the state's drug free zones from fifteen hundred to two hundred feet. from free zones or controversy oh you know in certain parts of the country in certain rural areas you can understand an exclusion zone around the school about selling drugs and adding a mandatory minimum to the drug charge but in a place like new haven a very urban concentrated center it targets minority and impoverished people because their entire living area is a drug free zone. so we're heading over to see law enforcement here in new haven to hear their side of the story to hear why they feel these drug free zones are effective policy. sorghum for him will be covering tissues to foreign and we use

a pretty much as a template. and it willy you know not to make it not personal but that's that's where it is for the officer on the beat you find the drugs you find the person you're arresting you find the school or the public housing complex you put a pin in the middle of it and you measure fifteen hundred feet from that and if they're in it it's just another charge tell me what you think of the you know the drug free zones is that is a useful tool is that. yes it's a useful tool but i think it's more of a hansom and it's used for plea bargaining tools. i like it because we can make a statement sometimes with people hey you're in a if you're in a school zone europe you're where children are you're dealing in a place that's for been to us part of the problem in some people's minds with the drug free zones in new haven is that they also include public housing projects i mean do you see that as an issue in the life of permits and potentially traps minorities if you have a high concentration of shows in the public housing area so what better place to

not have drugs am i against reducing it no but even if you want to thousand if you look at the map a thousand feet you're still going to cover most of the area and again as a parent do you want someone don't judge fifteen hundred your school or three hundred within your kid's school i pick fifteen hundred at first that and realise what the fifteen and if it was told us that this is all about keeping drug dealers from coming on school property selling. that would want that but after several of her sons were given increased prison time for possession in the drug free zone farber affair was getting frustrated she went to work on getting her sons out of prison and into jobs then her youngest son was arrested for drug possession inside a drug free zone. i just going to madam how he could have got to be. quite a ways away so i went. and talked to some of the people and asked him you know if they can give me a measurement between where my son was where the school. he

was able to get away from death mandatory charge the reality is people don't challenge that's starting to change in connecticut. today probably caring for senate bill two five nine which is a drug free school. harvey this is the beginning of a long process of changing it politically popular lost. because i'm sure it's number one thirty three for me. the hearing is for five nine. and we're trying to reform it from fifteen hundred fifty to two hundred feet you're good to go thank you. now i'm trying to just get. people you sound bites and they say this is we're being soft on crime by changing the rules or making it easy for people to peddle drugs to children the root of the

problem is poverty in addiction and unemployment so why don't we look at those things first before we i'm so busy to look at ways of incarceration you see this bill in the past you came for us last year just my opinion change from last year. can be a situation where making life easier for criminals and making it harder for law abiding citizens i don't see anything that has changed that will change so obviously you know my mind is changed. taking the bus to hartford to represent the families in new haven whose lives have been negatively affected by this i think today might be the day that they finally get to miss is that they really need to do something about this has been dragging opportunity. years now i truly truly believe them may really have a shot at this after all these years pray now we have the public. and after the public care in addition to vote it out of the committee and then after it passes the senate and the house without any problems then it goes to the governor governor

has to sign a long process this is what we call the weekend it will be an interesting day to say the least. the first person signed up is state representative prosodic srinivasan. to represent you may proceed whenever you're ready thank you i'm testifying today in opposition of his bill and for us to say that because shrink this is zone sense in my opinion of the wrong message i'm actually appalled that the even considering shrinking this drug free zone. back in the bronx it's the end of a long work day for michael torres with a court date tomorrow his limbo status in the legal system could finally be coming to an end. going to feed the girls first the. whole feel. of. the awful that you've. got

to be there. to scott's office. walk over to the courthouse to go. and think is situation i know people that have been in this situation but they have never dragged on this long like this is that this is a little excessive mike says that he is like that bad luck. good matches without much as far. they might judge him. for his background you know they don't believe people can change and people do change you can make a lot of people make mistakes. i love you. not a bad person he's a very good guys very responsible works every day. and you know i just take time off and it puts a toll because you know he doesn't get paid for his time off. so the no comes more you know more stress for me and i have to you know pick up whatever you can pick up and it gets a little expensive have to wind up kids are expensive have no maintaining our

household you know car insurance everything's expensive. out of the. west and for the same situation. though most of them got the. oh they were forced to cop out. everything all wrapped up. with then. you got to get up early baby. all my love don't forget i have to i in this stuff. i don't think that there is a conscious decision to do this on the part of the police that is to overwhelm the courts but the style policing that we've had in new york city for the past twenty years has led to just a flood of misdemeanor cases in the system the number of mr bean arrests in new york city has skyrocketed since the early ninety's the result is criminal courts in

new york spend all of their time processing cases and just managing calendars rather than conducting hearings or securing evidence or calling witnesses in the bronx michael torres is about to have his day in court his misdemeanor marijuana case has been delayed twelve times he's hoping number thirteen will be as lucky number the plan is to head into court all go to the m.s.g. party which is where the very oldest in years go and then it's just sort of a lot of hurry up and we will really just have to play by ear and see you know if there's a judge available there's a courtroom available whether or not the police officer actually shows up. there or just something deeply unfair about promising people their day in court and dangling it in front of them for. years on end and never actually get into the damage that that open case has done the mr torres his life is not damaged it can be undone overnight. and the simple thing. is. that. there are

real psychological costs of living with that inside that low level his id that follows you everywhere when you have an open case i'm ahead and you go through security and then you're just down the escalator. so that's all right so now i'm an optimist i think we have a great shot i certainly don't know the outcome but we are always prepared and we are going to fight like hell for mr torres. in hartford the state's judiciary committee is holding a public hearing about a controversial build a shrink the state's drug free zones from fifteen hundred to two hundred feet most conservative opponents of the bill are from small towns or wealthy suburbs places where the idea of voting to shrink the size of a drug free zone is hard to fathom. just make sure that i understand your position they're saying that

a person who is apprehended selling drugs five football fields and distance away from a school should be arrested and prosecuted and subjected to an enhanced panel to be on the basis that that activity is endangering the children that are attending that particular school is that correct yes i mean i did not realize that fifteen hundred was five five football fields and regardless of that the fifteen hundred should still be the area where and hands and o.t. would be would be handed out to the bus and was it twenty in light of that response do you think it would be sensible to clearly mark the area which its own. for example instead of just posting a sign at go the boundaries of zone maybe we should stripe the streets or paint the streets wide. for the length of fifteen hundred feet away from the school or daycare center chairman that that part has crossed my mind as to how to make that

demarkation very clear that this is a drug free cell but i'm not sure how the law just takes them as well especially in our open cities where you take a lot of white. this is part of the process to get. out of my life those things that. would. make it through. what is going to be to the. shore. this case put up on the fact that if they do it. now i have to. tell them this in. this situation. for them because the. office just the facts to.

come out and. before. this went on and see what had. the connecticut state sentencing commission is testifying its studies have shown that the current law unjustly penalizes the state's urban residents especially those who are found in possession of small amounts of marijuana it makes no difference if you possess or sell on the doorstep of a school or in the an office building in downtown so we're left with a feel good law that is in effect even result a nonviolent low level drug dealers being locked up for longer periods with additional prison cost but without any real advantage to the society luckily this would not be an entirely a social experiment others. have taken similar measures to reduce their zone sizes are in two thousand and eleven delaware went from a thousand feet to three hundred feet in two thousand and twelve massachusetts went from a thousand feet to three hundred feet in two thousand and thirteen indiana went from a thousand feet to five hundred feet it's very difficult. and i'm going to be

honest for me to entertain luring a drug free zone where potentially it may be working i mean the whole point here is that urban centers are more densely populated and with this fifteen hundred feet law that urban centers. but why is that bad i state what is wrong with. tori and discrimination is wrong and i wonder if this spirit treat was happening in other communities where people understand why we need to move on the books quite frankly i'm not prepared in any way shape or form to be like any drug dealer who is victimizing our young children i'm in no position. to make such a drastic change you know they say sanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result i think i'm ready to sign myself into a facility. that seems to be the same.

there are no. no judges available to try to. just wait around for an hour to receiving. it. in two thousand and twelve new york state's chief judge launched a special program to clear up the backlog of cases in the bronx since then this so-called blockbuster court has been working to cut through decades of bureaucratic red tape but while the number of pending felony cases that are two years or older have been reduced there are still thousands of open misdemeanor cases. so we checked in with the original trial part and originally when the case was called

there were no car parts available but we second call the case they called the case again they were able to find us a court room and we're now waiting for the police officer to arrive so we can begin to hear this is about as close as we've gotten and so we're very hopeful if we could actually have some testimony and a decision on our on our hearing i think this is this is going to be a first for the project for sure. in hartford the public hearing is over for the drug free zone bill now the judiciary committee gets to decide if the bill can go forward senate bill two fifty nine is the final item on the committee's agenda time is running short and the vote is too close to call we're not going to be able to crawl into the mental calculus of a drug dealer someone has already decided to break the law and say you know we're going to change our decision making process because if you stay in that corner you get penalty a but if you stand on this corner you get penalty beat drug dealing occurs more in big cities than it does on

a farm. in the country and if that's where the trafficking is then let us allow the higher penalty to prevail voted against this in the past but looking at some of the research and following the way law enforcement will have a better tool you know i just don't buy the fact that this is being soft on crime i think it's rhetoric i really feel that it's not reality for what we. i can do with this bill here today i do have in my hand e-mails and letters of variety of constituents and not only from my phone but throughout the state of connecticut and i have not received any. any of the best of my knowledge any communication about doing away with this legislation i've received many in opposite there and so i can't support this you have a school. zone around the school and you also have a has penalty for this out to kids our kids will be safe if you pass this go.

after twelve failed attempts to have his case heard in court michael torres is finally catching a break the police officer who arrested him is scheduled to take the stand. for yes got everyone to. register this ok. we asked permission to film the trial but were turned down by the court after two and a half years michael tours is fate is about to be decided. please call the road. home and yes. with just minutes left in the committee session the drug free zone reduction bill passed by a slim margin the vote was twenty one to nineteen and it's a key victory but now holder winfield's bill must survive debates in the house and senate before it can become law are you hopeful this is going to pass i think it

has a good chance of passing i think is tough work ahead i am under the understanding that what i think is right some people think is completely wrong i wanted to understand some of the stuff that i know about an issue other people don't know but i think if we do that work and we educate people there's no reason we can't get this bill done this year. basis was so. thank god. thank god i feel like this weight off my shoulder. so i think they said i'm glad. the stress take this news back to the job maybe the guy's. got a good deal of. do i go through the. use first in the things i think is very it's nice that after all this time we go result we want to. just really think

in the back of her head right i mean. this detective who arrested mr torres two and out years ago admitted that he remembered nothing about the incident and couldn't testify at all about what had happened in september of two thousand and eleven and so before we even got to cross-examination before we were allowed to ask him a single question the case was essentially just missed the in the box and like tyson at one of the main reason mr torres fought this case for so long and showed up for as long as he did is he wanted to chance to hear what the police officer had to say and he wanted to chance to have his defense counsel cross-examine that police officer and that never happened he wanted to see the evidence against him and what was revealed today is that there never was really any evidence against him which makes the two and a half years that we waited for this moment and basis victory a little bittersweet and so i think what this case calls for it is the need for

a reassessment of our basic institutions of justice. in august two thousand and thirteen a federal judge in new york issued a landmark ruling judge sheindlin ruled that the new york city police department violated its citizens fourth amendment rights to be free of unreasonable search and seizure she also ruled that the police department stop and frisk practices were racially discriminatory in january of two thousand and fourteen the city of new york dropped its appeal and agreed to work. with a court appointed monitor to reform its procedures wow ha. it's a big big we saw so excited of even though the case is dismissed you know. if you say i just came out of jail and the like is because this took so long you know all the punishment itself it was like doing time. i am very hopeful for the future i think new york city is going through

a period of change and i think very exciting period of change i think there's a lot of opportunity but i think we need to be vigilant if this system is going to have meaning for people it has to pay attention to people and hopefully are headed in that direction. whenever i see something that has happened in the news my first reaction is to please god don't let this person have been someone that we released on parole gatekeepers of the parole system you're asking us for a second chance or a what's important to me was on the other side offense and how do i get it on the side of us he was amused at her and remember all given how many times you've been

in our prisons exploring the dark side of the american justice system with joe berlinger on al-jazeera. if only the fish received a fair weather sponsored by qatar airways. hello there it's getting quite cold force in argentina at the moment but as ari's has got struggling temperatures we've also seen a fair amount of cloud over us recently that cloud is it working its way eastwards but still dragging its feet over the northern parts of argentina and into parts of southern brazil new requires well to the south about it where it three cool so

buenos aires no higher than twelve as we head through the day on monday to the north of it though it's very different it's hot it's fairly humid his ascension up at thirty two degrees which is pretty high considering where in the middle of winter at the moment the rain in the south continues with us as we head through the day on tuesday and for santiago we're also going to see a fair amount of cloud and a top temperature just of thirteen for the central america is there's plenty of sunshine across cuba and across into hispanic also a few showers though over his spaniel at the moment and further towards the west is where we've got more persistent cloud and some heavier more persistent rain that's pushing its way northward through parts of costa rica into nicaragua there as we head through tuesday and still giving us some very heavy downpours as it does now a bit further towards the north and we've seen lots of heavy rain in the southwest in parts of the u.s. that's continuing as we head through the next few days we're also seeing more rain in the east now and it still stay hot. the weather sponsored by qatar airways.

he has no passport yet he's politically active in two thousand trees i was the only one that would stand up our peaceful transition when because the short term it's hard you know part of the world some people think you are stupid and crazy if you do that mikhail saakashvili former president of georgia and the next governor of the odessa region in ukraine talked to al jazeera. this is a really fabulous news for one of the best i've ever worked here there is a unique sense of bonding with everybody. but something i feel every time i get on the chair every time i interview someone we're often working around the clock to make sure that we bring events as i threw at me as possible to the viewer that's what people expect of us and that's what i think we really do well. on counting the cost why china wants an expanded economic role in the middle east we'll look at which countries are leading the way in innovation. cancer causing one

of the world's most profitable and widely used. this is al-jazeera. hello welcome to the al-jazeera news our. local headquarters here in doha this is what's coming up in the next sixty minutes. the world wants to see you get along with you are the two great nuclear power. and speak of building a new relationship before meeting one on one in finland. i'm james.