Dennis Flores

Dennis Flores

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Dennis Flores' project consisted on filming a 10-15 minute documentary film that expands our understanding of how Giuliani-era gang policing displaced thousands of young people from communities into prisons in order to pave the way for the gentrification of Puerto Rican neighborhoods across New York City. It also demonstrated how young people from these neighborhoods organized resistance through creative protest and community self-defense. The research focused on the Richie PĂ©rez Papers at Centro and analyzed how his work and legacy impacted the struggle against mass incarceration and the displacement of Puerto Rican communities in New York.

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Dennis Flores is a multimedia artist, activist, and educator born and raised in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. He is the founder of El Grito, a grassroots community-based organization that advocates around issues of discriminatory policing. Dennis is also the lead organizer of the Sunset Park Puerto Rican Day Parade, which, entering its seventh year, has created a celebration of Puerto Rican culture safe from police harassment. One of the pioneers of the modern day cop watch movement in New York, Dennis began to organize patrols of everyday people to film and document police misconduct beginning in 1995. The use of video to not only expose police brutality but to help exonerate those who were arrested and criminally charged, laid the foundation for the growing police accountability movement seen across the country today.

Screenshot from Vimeo - Elsa Waithe, Ashoka Jegroo and Josmar Trujillo sit in a line with microphones set up in front of them. The video is in black and white.
Dennis Flores. Copwatch Media Podcast Episode Two 09/29/2022, 2022. 1:07:20. Vimeo Upload. Co-Produced by Josmar Trujillo, Ashoka Jegroo, Robin Margolis, and Dennis Flores. Audio Direction by Jose Omar Rivera. Directed by Dennis Flores
Dennis Flores from the shoulders up standing on a city street.
Dennis Flores. Police Violence at the Sunset Park Puerto Rican Day Parade, 2018. YouTube video. (Still 3:06 of 4:49). WITNESS. "Police Violence at the Sunset Park Puerto Rican Day Parade" YouTube, 29 Aug. 2018, https://youtu.be/SCzD_BItOkU?si=9zHNwcGEIlJaKHew