NEWS: Coke-dealer Cop Also a Killer/NYC
N.Y. Transfer
Via The NY Transfer News Service ~ All the News that Doesn't Fit
NY COKE COP WAS A KILLER COP
By Rebeca Toledo, New York
On the heels of the Los Angeles verdict that set four racist cops
free in the near-fatal beating of Rodney King, New York City
tabloids ran front-page stories about six cops indicted for
running a lucrative, highly sophisticated cocaine ring. What the
New York tabloids didn't play up, however, was the fact that one
of these cops, Thomas Mascia, was acquitted in 1990 of the brutal
death of Juan Rodriguez, a Dominican worker in Brooklyn.
The police officers, four from the 73rd Precinct and two from the
94th Precinct in Brooklyn, are accused of buying drugs in these
districts and transporting them to their homes in Long Island for
sale throughout the area.
The New York City police department has been riddled with cases
of drug-running since the 1960s. Ledgers in which confiscated
drugs were tallied in order to be resold have been uncovered. The
famous "French Connection" expose focused international attention
on blatant drug dealing by New York police. However, despite all
the publicity in this and other cases, not one cop was ever
convicted.
The only unusual feature of the present case is that some police
were actually arrested. Whether they'll ever be punished is
another question.
Community outrage over killing
Thomas Mascia, one of those now under indictment, and three other
cops beat and murdered Juan Rodriguez in his home on Jan. 30,
1988. The cover-up began immediately, as the NYPD refused to
release the mutilated body.
After the family hired an independent investigator and solicited
the aid of the Latino Coalition for Racial Justice, a
community-based group that helped publicize the murder, the body
was released. The police department claimed that Rodriguez's
death was due to cardiac arrest. Homicide was ruled out and the
beating was called justified.
What the community found was different. There were broken ribs
and multiple contusions on the face, jaw, neck and arms,
according to Gerald Donlin, the independent investigator.
Rodriguez's fingers looked like they had been stomped on. The
beating was so grisly that the walls and bed sheets of the
apartment where he lived with his wife and three children were
splattered with blood.
After multinational crowds numbering several thousand marched
through Brooklyn in many protests, a grand jury was pressured
into indicting the four cops. However, two years later, in March
of 1990, the cops, including Thomas Mascia, were cleared of all
wrong-doing.
Sound familiar?
(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted
if source is cited. For more info contact Workers World,46 W. 21
St., New York, NY 10010. Phone (212) 206-8222.On New York
Transfer or PeaceNet, write "workers".)
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