Cops bust seven men playing chess in upper Manhattan park

Drop that bishop and come out with your hands up!

A squad of cops in bulletproof vests swooped into an upper Manhattan park and charged seven men with the "crime" of playing chess in an area off-limits to adults unaccompanied by kids -- even though no youngsters were there.

"Is chess really something that should be considered a threat to the neighborhood?" Inwood resident and mom Joanne Johnson wrote Mayor Bloomberg, the City Council and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly after the raid.

"This incident is an embarrassment to the officers from the 34th Precinct who felt that it was necessary to use their badge and authority to issue such a random summons."

ROOKED: Junior Mendoza says cops only “should have given us a warning.”

The knights in Kevlar armor gave all seven suspects desk-appearance tickets.

The chess tables where they were ticketed for "failure to comply with signs" are in a fenced-in area where posted notices read: "Adults allowed in playground areas only when accompanied by a child under the age of 12."

Police said the rule protects kids from pedophiles or others who might want to harm them.

A police source added, "It’s the broken windows theory . . . small things can turn into bigger things. Some citizens may see it as police harassment, but God forbid something happens to a child, people would be complaining, Why didn’t the police enforce these rules? That’s what they would be griping about."

Yacahuda "Y.A." Harrison, 49, one of those chess aficionados, said he saw those signs months ago and "asked the [Parks] ranger if we had permission to be there."

"The ranger said, 'Oh no, that's fine, that's only written for pedophiles.' "

Since then, he said, parents have welcomed him and the other players -- and even had their kids take chess lessons from them.

"The day we got picked up, there were no kids" in the playground, he said. "They treated us like drug dealers. All we were doing was playing chess."

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Credit: New York Post

Cody Alicea, 13, likes to fly a small American flag on his bike in honor of veterans such as his grandfather, Robert. He’s been doing it for two months. But now, the school he attends has ordered him to remove the flag citing “racial tensions.”

“In this country we’re supposed to be free,” said Cody, who attends Denair Middle School near Sacramento, CA. “And I should be able to wave my flag wherever I want to. And they‘re telling me I can’t.”

Free or not, officials say flag flying has become too controversial at the school. Denair Unified School District Superintendent Edward Parraz said that while Cody does have a First Amendment right, “with that comes a responsibility.”

That “responsibility” apparently means being more considerate to other cultures.

“Our Hispanic, you know, kids will, you know, bring their Mexican flags and they’ll display it, and then of course the kids would do the American flag situation, and it does cause kind of a racial tension which we don’t really want,” Parraz said. “We want them to appreciate the cultures.”

He explained that some Hispanic students got out of hand with their own flag flying on Cinco de Mayo.

In response, Cody now hides his flag during the day: he takes it off his bike, folds it up, and keeps it in his backpack.

“He‘s got that flag on his bike because he’s proud of where he comes from,” Cody’s father Robert Kisner told KCRA-TV.

Adding to the irony: the school flies an American flag outside the building.

Credit: Jonathon Seidl, theblaze.com

White flag of surrender