- Federal judge clears Des Moines cops in 1 of 3 fatal shootings -
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Federal judge clears Des Moines cops in 1 of 3 fatal shootings
(Michael Novick , 12/4/00 3:03)
D.M. officers cleared in shooting
Lawsuit against officers is dismissed
By TOM ALEX
Des Moines Iowa Register Staff Writer
12/01/2000
A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit against two Des Moines police
officers involved in last year's fatal shooting of Adam Clark.
Federal prosecutors have also decided against filing criminal charges
against the officers.
A lawyer for Clark's mother, Mary Elaine Sinclair, said he plans to
appeal.
"We disagree with the judge's ruling," Alfredo Parrish said.
Officers Timothy Peak and Michael McBride were called to a fight at
3118
Cottage Grove Ave. about 3:30 a.m. on March 28, 1999. They approached a
third-floor apartment, where they said a man inside was screaming
obscenities and threatening to kill them.
Peak shot Clark after the 20-year-old reportedly kicked the apartment
door
open while holding what turned out to be a pellet gun.
U.S. District Judge Charles R. Wolle said Peak had ample probable cause
to
believe that Clark posed a significant threat of death or physical
harm.
"That the gun was later discovered to be a BB gun is of no
consequence,"
Wolle wrote.
He cited previous decisions that urge courts "not to indulge in
armchair
quarterbacking or exploit the benefits of hindsight when evaluating
police
officers' use of deadly force." Wolle noted that "police officers are
often
forced to make split-second judgments - in circumstances that are
tense,
uncertain and rapidly evolving."
Clark's death was the first of three fatal police shootings last year.
Officers Joseph Morgan and Terry Mitchell shot Jerome Mozee on April
20.
Sgt. Russell Schafnitz and Officer Gregory Dickel shot Russell Andrew
Stein
on June 30.
In each case, police said they fired because they believed their lives
were
in danger. Polk County grand jurors cleared all the officers of
criminal
wrongdoing.
U.S. Attorney Don Nickerson ordered the FBI to determine whether police
violated civil-rights laws. Justice Department officials said this
month
that they found no violations in the Clark case.
Des Moines Police Lt. Kelly Willis said Thursday that federal officials
are
expected to make the same finding soon in the Stein shooting. He had no
information on the status of the Mozee investigation.
"The Des Moines Police Department does not view this as a victory. This
was
a tragic event," Willis said. "Our sympathies go out to the family and
friends of Adam Clark and to the police officers, who also become
victims
in this."
Clark's sister, 15-year-old Alaina Kent, said judgment awaits the
officers.
"They are probably not going to get punished here on earth," she said.
"When they die, on Judgment Day, they will have to pay for it. It just
doesn't seem fair."
Kent said the 20 months since Clark's death have been hard on her
family.
"We're doing better now, but it's still a struggle," she said.
--
- Outlaw Frog Raper -
Schenectady Copwatch
The Schenectady Copwatch mailing list contains archived
posts from anywhere regarding police abuse.
(518) 356-4238
news:alt.thebird.copwatch
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Indianapolis cop facing charges over drugs, kiddie porn (Michael
Novick , 12/4/00 3:07)
Officer sinks deeper into trouble
IPD chief seeks to fire Scott Cooper for using steroids; he also faces
child pornography charges.
By Tom Spalding
Indianapolis Star
December 1, 2000
Already on the defense against child pornography charges, an
Indianapolis
patrolman was told Thursday that the Police Department will seek to
fire
him for violating its substance-abuse policy.
Officer Scott J. Cooper tested positive for an anabolic steroid in
early
November, police chief Jerry L. Barker said.
Barker said he will recommend Cooper's ouster to the Indianapolis
Civilian
Police Merit Board.
Cooper's career as an officer is already in jeopardy because of
accusations
that he displayed sexually explicit pornographic images and videotapes
to
minors.
Authorities have charged Cooper with felony child exploitation, felony
possession of a controlled substance, misdemeanor possession of child
pornography and three felony counts of dissemination of matter harmful
to
minors.
Cooper's new defense lawyer, James Voyles, said he is unsure whether
the
drug test result will send the 29-year-old Speedway man back to jail
until
his trial, which is set for late January.
"I'm not sure it has any significance," Voyles said.
The merit board may wait for the criminal charges to be resolved
against
Cooper before taking action, said Sgt. Ameen Najjar, IPD's legal
adviser.
"The merit board probably won't even look at this for a couple of weeks
and
put it far off into the future," Najjar said.
Cooper's lawyer indicated the officer wants to defend his job and fight
for
his freedom.
The undercover narcotics investigator was charged in October after an
ex-girlfriend told authorities Cooper had videotapes depicting boys
under
the age of 16 taking showers or masturbating in the officer's basement
and
bedroom.
Even though Cooper was off-duty, Barker said the improper activities
still
stick because Cooper broke the department's immoral conduct rules.
Investigators believe the conduct has occurred since Jan. 1, 1995.
Barker has publicly stated that Cooper will be fired if convicted of
the
criminal charges.
His call for the immediate firing came, Najjar said, because Cooper
signed
and agreed to abide by the department's substance-abuse policy in June
1998.
Cooper was not available for comment.
Contact Tom Spalding at (317) 327-7939 or via e-mail at
tom.sp...@starnews.com
Copyright 2000 Indiana Newspapers Inc.
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Settlement, ruling of liability in killings by KC police (Michael
Novick , 12/4/00 3:21)
Shootings dull shine on police badge
Kansas City struggles in aftermath of shootings by authorities
The Associated Press
Tuesday, October 10, 2000
Kansas City, Mo — Two fatal shootings by police officers — along with a
jury's finding of police liability in one case and a $400,000
settlement
in
the other — have strained relations between the police department and
the
people it protects.
Still, most Kansas City community leaders say they remain committed to
working with police.
"At some point in time, everybody needs the police," said Jim Nunn, a
former police officer who is executive director of Move Up, a coalition
for
urban renewal.
Note from MN: Too precious for words! The community leader they site to
back up the claim that community leaders
remain committed to working with the cops is an ex-cop! The only other
two
they quote (below) are a councilman and a
former police commissioner. 'Nuff said--MN
The shootings of Timothy Wilson and Carol A. Kerns happened about three
months apart.
Last week, the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners approved a
$400,000 settlement in the shooting death of Kerns, 37, by a police
officer
during a January 1999 traffic stop. The settlement did not include an
admission of police liability for the death. But it came just days
after
a
jury awarded $700,000 in damages to the mother of Timothy, a
13-year-old
shot to death by police in November 1998 after a car chase.
Some say the officers, whose lives are regularly at risk, made the best
decisions they could under the circumstances. Others see the cases as
examples of bad police work.
In each case, officers said, they thought the suspects were going to
run
over them with their vehicles.
Those incidents have not helped relations between police and the
public,
City Councilman Alvin Brooks said. But that relationship has been
improving, he said.
Brooks said cases such as the Wilson and Kerns shootings should prompt
the
police department to review its policies. The police have work to do,
he
said, and the community needs to help.
"In spite of these cases, I think there are some very positive things
that
are happening," Brooks said.
Police have declined to comment on how the Kerns and Wilson decisions
have
affected community relations.
Jeff Simon, a former Kansas City police commissioner, said community
policing and regular meetings with neighborhood residents could help
rebuild trust between the public and the police. That way, even when a
crisis arises, the relationship continues to function.
The goodwill, though, has to exist beforehand, Simon said, because
"There's
very little you can do to build it up afterwards."
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Milwaukee cop charged with obstruction, misconduct (Michael
Novick , 12/4/00 3:31)
Milwaukee police officer charged on two counts
Last Updated: Dec. 1, 2000 at 7:32:47 p.m.
MILWAUKEE (AP) - A police officer was charged with obstructing an
officer
and misconduct in public office for lying after a drug incident he was
sent
to investigate.
Talmer Wilson, 26, of Milwaukee was arrested Nov. 30 following an
internal
investigation of an Oct. 15 incident, Police Chief Arthur L. Jones said
in
a statement Friday.
The criminal complaint said Wilson went to a north side Milwaukee
apartment
building to respond to the building manager's allegation that he was
assaulted by three tenants after he confronted them about dealing drugs
in
the building.
The manager showed Wilson a package of cocaine he had confiscated from
an
alleged customer of the men, the complaint said.
The manager said Wilson then gave him his name and phone number and
said
to
call him in nine days to follow up on the incident.
Wilson then told two other officers at the scene they could leave and
pocketed a package of rock cocaine the manager had confiscated from an
alleged customer of the men, the complaint said.
Three days later, Wilson initially denied seeing any cocaine but later
admitted it. He told investigators he took the cocaine, put it in his
pocket and later threw it into a sewer.
Wilson was appointed to the police department in June 1999.
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December 4, 2000
Ex-Panther Sues Defiant Police for 19-Year Imprisonment
By ALAN FEUER
Nancy Siesel/The New York Times
Dhoruba al-Mujahid bin Wahad, a former Black Panther leader,
says
a government conspiracy framed him for the machine-gunning of two
police
officers in 1971. He was freed in 1990 after his conviction was
reversed.
Dhoruba al-Mujahid bin Wahad has been itching for 25 years to tell his
story in open court. His claims that the authorities wrongly convicted
him
for the attempted murder of two New York City police officers, then
stuck
him in a cell for nearly 19 years, have been around since the era when
Huey
P. Newton was raising his fist in a call for black power.
His lawsuit against the city for malicious prosecution and false
imprisonment harks back to the days when the black power movement and
the
law clashed violently on the streets of New York, the days when some of
Manhattan's elite passed the hat for legal expenses for radicals who
maintained that federal agents and city officers were engaged in a plot
to
infiltrate and silence them.
This week, nearly three decades after that raw era, Mr. Wahad, a former
leader of the Black Panther Party, will present his case: that the
Police
Department framed him in the machine-gunning of the two officers on
Riverside Drive in 1971.
"We have a jury here that we have to educate," Mr. Wahad said during an
hourlong telephone interview on Friday. "We have to show them that the
police would really do what they did to me. This isn't some sci-fi
movie,
some kind of history show on PBS. This is for real. They actually did
this
stuff to me."
Mr. Wahad, now 56, was known as Richard Moore when he was a field
lieutenant for the Black Panthers and a circulation manager for the
party's
daily newspaper during the Vietnam War era. He now lives in Ghana,
where
he
runs cultural programs for West African youth, managing a pair of
hip-hop
groups and working with a local dance troupe.
In United States District Court in Manhattan tomorrow, Mr. Wahad will
seek
$15 million in damages and argue that the Police Department and federal
agents worked together to deprive him of his constitutional rights by
manipulating evidence in his case.
Lawyers for the police, on the other hand, will argue that there was no
conspiracy to implicate Mr. Wahad, and that he did, in fact, gun down
the
two police officers, Thomas Curry and Nicholas Binetti, who, the
lawyers
say, were maimed but survived.
But there will be a third palpable presence in the courtroom: history,
which has left its imprint on the case, even as memories have faded and
witnesses have vanished or died.
It is a history that began May 19, 1971, when Officers Curry and
Binetti
were wounded in a burst of machine-gun fire while standing guard
outside
the home of the Manhattan district attorney, Frank S. Hogan. On July
30,
1971, Mr. Wahad was indicted on charges of attempted murder.
Mr. Wahad's first trial ended in a hung jury; his second in a mistrial.
But
in a third trial, in 1973, Mr. Wahad was convicted by a jury that
deliberated for less than an hour, and was sentenced to 25 years to
life.
In December 1975, papers in the lawsuit say, Mr. Wahad learned that
Congressional hearings had disclosed the existence of a covert F.B.I.
operation known as Cointelpro, a Nixon-era counterintelligence program
that
sought to disrupt and discredit the Black Panthers and other radical
movements.
Mr. Wahad filed a federal lawsuit against the F.B.I. and the city that
month, arguing that he was a victim of the smear campaign and that the
F.B.I. and the New York police had worked together to spread dissension
within the Black Power movement. The suit said that the authorities had
dipped into a bag of dirty tricks that included illegal wiretaps,
office
burglaries and the dissemination of inflammatory lies by agents who
infiltrated the movement.
As a result of Mr. Wahad's suit, the F.B.I. slowly released more than
300,000 pages of secret documents about Cointelpro, including an
internal
memorandum from J. Edgar Hoover, the F.B.I. director. In the memo,
which
recounted a long conversation with President Richard M. Nixon about the
shooting of the two New York officers, Hoover ordered his top aides
"not
to
pull any punches in going all out" to solve the shooting, including
setting
up a special team to work with the New York police.
The F.B.I. records showed that the police and prosecutors failed to
give
Mr. Wahad's lawyers crucial information for his defense. The critical
item
that was withheld, the defense lawyers contend, was a tape-recorded
anonymous telephone call by a woman to the police, saying that Mr.
Wahad
was not involved in the shooting. Through the F.B.I. documents, Mr.
Wahad's
lawyers learned that the woman who made the phone call had been
identified
as Pauline Joseph, who, as a witness for the prosecution, implicated
Mr.
Wahad.
Mr. Wahad used these records and others to appeal his conviction, and
on
March 15, 1990, a State Supreme Court justice in Manhattan reversed it,
ruling that the prosecution had failed to disclose evidence that could
have
helped Mr. Wahad's defense.
In 1995, the Manhattan district attorney's office decided not to retry
Mr.
Wahad, saying that it could no longer make a case against him because
so
much time had passed.
About 20 years after Mr. Wahad had filed his lawsuit, the F.B.I.
settled,
for $400,000. The city did not.
"The bottom line is that he did it," said Daniel S. Connolly, a lawyer
in
the corporation counsel's office. "Our position is that there was no
conspiracy and that this was not a malicious prosecution. The crime
that
he
is alleged to have committed, he did, in fact, commit."
The documents in the case read like a history chapter on black
radicalism.
An affidavit signed by Robert J. Boyle, Mr. Wahad's lawyer, for
example,
begins with a brief retelling of intelligence operations that focused
on
the Black Power movement, including references to the 1969 Panther 21
trial. The case was based on the testimony of three undercover police
officers who infiltrated the Black Panther Party and said they had
uncovered a conspiracy to blow up department stores and the New York
Botanical Garden, bomb police stations and kill police officers. All 21
defendants, including Mr. Wahad, were acquitted in 1971.
Efforts to reach Officers Curry and Binetti through city lawyers and
through the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association were unsuccessful. But
city
lawyers said that they never fully recovered from their injuries.
The march of time has not dulled the intensity that Mr. Wahad feels
about
his case. His conversational style is quick and aphoristic, then
suddenly
professorial. In one breath, he says he wants to spit on the graves of
the
officers who wronged him; in another, he delivers a rambling lecture on
the
dangers of globalism or the disenfranchisement of black voters in this
year's presidential election.
"I think given the facts of my false conviction, the truth will
eventually
prevail," he said. "The jury will see that the New York district
attorney's
office suborned perjury, withheld evidence and maliciously prosecuted
me. I
can at least tell the story of what happened to people like myself. And
that's the most important lesson I can teach."
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Washington Post: D.C. Cops Often Close Cases Without solving them
Washington Post: D.C. Cops Often "Close" Cases Without solving them
D.C. Police Often Close Cases Without Arrests
By Cheryl W. Thompson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 4, 2000; Page A01
Second of four articles
Three days after Christmas in 1995, a Chevy Camaro holding Chauncey
Dillard
and his cousin Reginald Palmer was sprayed with bullets on Montana
Street
in Northeast. At Washington Hospital Center, Dillard told his mother
and
a
D.C. police detective who did it. Then he died in surgery.
"He gave up those names in the operating room," Detective Phineas Young
said in a recent interview.
Dillard's mother believed his dying declaration would allow police to
solve
the case quickly. But it remained open for nearly two years, until one
of
the suspects Dillard named was killed. Then police closed the case
"administratively"--attributing the killing to the dead suspect and
"solving" the investigation without an arrest.
A Washington Post examination shows that the department's homicide
clearance rate, the measure by which detectives are judged, is
increasingly
bolstered by such administrative closures. The proportion of homicides
closed by arrest has dropped while the rate of administrative closures
has
risen, according to D.C. police records and Post analysis. Among cases
that
occurred between 1988 and 1990, a Post study in 1993 found that 10
percent
of the cases closed were done so administratively; The Post recently
looked
at 1997 homicides and found that rate had risen to 18 percent.
Under General Order 304.1, D.C. police are allowed to close cases
administratively under specific circumstances: a suspect is dead or
commits
suicide; two people kill each other; a dying suspect confesses; a
suspect
is already in prison or being prosecuted; or a suspect is in a country
where extradition is not allowed.
But the very nature of administrative closures--they are made with
evidence
that is never tested in court--raises questions about their
proliferation
in recent years.
The Post study also found an increase in the rate of cases closed
administratively with suspects who were dead. A look at 100 homicides
closed without an arrest between 1996 and 1999 found more than 50 that
were
pinned on dead suspects. Eleven of the cases languished for years with
little or no follow-up, only to be closed within days or weeks of a
suspect's death. Some cases contained no records explaining why the
case
was closed.
"It's too easy to blame it on a dead guy," said William L. Hennessy, a
retired D.C. police captain who commanded the homicide unit from 1993
to
1995. "We owe it to the community to make sure we're locking up the
right
guy. I didn't like closing cases 304.1."
The rise in the rate of administrative closures comes at a time when
hundreds of D.C. homicide cases are missing and many closed cases lack
proper documentation, a long-standing problem. A review of cases
ordered
by
Ramsey in response to a Post records request found that 98
administrative
closures between 1994 and 1999 were "properly closed" but said that
seven
others should be reopened. Still, hundreds of other cases were
incomplete
or could not be located. Among those cases are dozens of administrative
closures.
A report known as a "252," which lays out the basis for a closure, is
required to clear a case administratively. But The Post found that 29
of
the 100 cases it examined lacked the 252 report, making it difficult to
determine if justice was done. In dozens of cases, detectives failed to
contact the victims' family members to tell them that the case had been
cleared without an arrest, robbing relatives of a sense of closure.
"They closed the case?" asked Mamie Jones, whose son, Reginald, was
killed
in February 1994. "They never told me."
Her son's case was closed administratively in January 1996, but she did
not
find out until an interview with a Post reporter this summer.
In some cases, even the detectives involved were unaware that the case
had
been closed without an arrest.
"When did that get closed?" Detective Young responded after a Post
reporter
told him what had happened to the Dillard case. "I remember working on
the
case for the first couple of days, but after that I went back to
investigate other cases."
In the case of Dillard and Palmer, there appeared to be lots of solid
leads. Police had the nickname of the shooter from Dillard. They had
the
names of his associates. Police also had a source who told them less
than a
month after the shooting that he had been inside the gunman's apartment
and
had seen the guns used in the slayings, department records show.
"Here's a person who tells you who shot him, and they do nothing," said
Palmer's mother, who asked that her name not be used. "The person on
the
case did nothing. Not a note. Not a letter. Not a phone call, and that
in
itself is deplorable. My grandson could do better investigating than
they
did, and he's 7."
Detective Young told The Post, "I know we developed a suspect, but I
don't
think we ever had an eyewitness." He said cases were backed up around
Christmas in 1995, when he had his hospital interview with Dillard.
Young
said Jeff Williams was the lead detective and should have kept the
family
informed. Detective Williams said in a brief telephone interview that
he
didn't know whether he had closed the case. "I'm not going to talk
about
this," he said.
The victims whose deaths were later blamed on dead suspects include:
* Reginald Dallas Jones, 43, who was gunned down Feb. 27, 1994, in
Southeast.
On Jan. 23, 1996, Troy Lewis was shot to death. Eleven days later,
police
closed the Jones case, naming Lewis as the killer. The case file
contained
no witness statements other than that of the officer who responded to
the
scene. Nor does it include an explanation of why police thought Lewis
was
the killer.
* Tyrone Thomas, 17, who was fatally shot April 15, 1992, in Northeast.
Mark Rosebure was killed Jan. 1, 1997. Thirteen days later, police
closed
the Thomas case, saying Rosebure was the triggerman. The case file
contains
no witness statements, no firearms report and no report explaining why
the
case was closed.
* Ronald Gathers, 36, who was shot 14 times on Sept. 21, 1992, as he
sat
outside drinking beer with two other men in Southeast.
In January 1994, an eyewitness identified Gathers's killer from a photo
lineup. The case sat for four years until it was reassigned to a
homicide
task force. Within months, investigators closed the Gathers case after
they
learned the suspect from the photo lineup had been killed on Dec. 11,
1994.
* Darnell "Diamond" Williams, 24, who was shot several times on Sept.
11,
1995, in Northwest.
Police developed two witnesses within three months and typed up an
arrest
warrant for Quentin L. "Vern Vern" Smith. But Smith was never charged
and
the file does not explain why. On May 11, 1997, Smith was shot and
killed.
Three days later, police blamed the Williams killing on Smith and
closed
the case administratively.
V.I. Smith, a retired D.C. homicide detective who was considered one of
the
best by his colleagues, was stunned to learn that the department has
closed
scores of homicides with dead suspects.
"I never closed a homicide [administratively], and I was there nine
years,"
Smith said. "The danger is you close a case but suppose you're wrong."
A Five-Time Killer
The relatives of Garlan Baskerville say they believe the police are
wrong
in his case. Baskerville grew up in a middle-class neighborhood in Oxon
Hill, but he got into trouble at school and eventually dropped out. The
21-year-old son of a retired D.C. schoolteacher was shot to death at
11:55
p.m. on July 5, 1996, as he sat in a car with friends in front of 725
Seventh St. NE.
Within a month, police pinned four killings on Baskerville. Two months
later, they added a fifth.
"They'll pin it on anybody just to say they closed a case,"
Baskerville's
sister said when told by a reporter that police named her dead brother
a
five-time killer. "If they had solid evidence, why didn't they arrest
him
at the time?"
The death of Baskerville was a windfall for D.C. police homicide
detectives, but no one issued a press release announcing it and no one
informed the victims' families.
The Post requested the five files closed after Baskerville's death and
was
told by police that one of them--the killing of Troy Craney--is still
open,
even though the U.S. attorney's office and a police database list it as
closed. The other four cases contain very little information linking
Baskerville to the crimes.
Only one of the cases--the killing of Steven Frederick--contains the
252
report required to close a case.
The sketchy report only states that a "witness was founded, and this
witness identified" Baskerville's mug shot in a photo lineup.
Detective Joe Fox insisted Garlan Baskerville was the killer.
"We had some witnesses who gave up the information but were afraid to
come
to court for their own safety," said Fox, a veteran detective. "Then we
got
another person, a close associate of Baskerville's, who gave up
information. But for the life of me, I can't tell you how we got the
[witness] in here."
Detective Jeff Mayberry, who investigated the Frederick slaying with
Fox,
said, "If I remember right, and I'm not sure, we were in the process of
getting ready to get a warrant for [Baskerville]. It's unfortunate we
weren't able to bring him before a jury of his peers."
The other three cases blamed on Baskerville contain no documents
indicating
how the killings were closed:
* Cornelius McDonald, 22, was shot in the right side of the head as he
stood on a street corner in Northeast in March 1993.
Carl Gregory, the original detective on the case, said the case was
turned
over to the cold-case squad because he "didn't have time to work a case
for
six months."
He does not recall what happened to the case.
* Daron Ford, 19, was gunned down in an alley in Northeast on a snowy
December afternoon just two weeks before Christmas 1995.
His blood-stained Eddie Bauer parka was found next to him. Police
believed
that the killing was drug related and that two suspects were involved,
records show. But the file was closed on Baskerville alone.
* Torre's Crawford, 19, was killed outside his aunt's house in
Northeast
in
September 1995. Fifteen minutes earlier, he had called his mother,
Frances,
to ask her to cook his favorite chicken wings. He would bring the soda,
he
promised.
Crawford's mother stayed on the line to chat with her sister and heard
three loud pops. Her sister thought it was a car backfiring. Crawford
knew
it was gunfire.
"My sister said, 'There's someone laying on my front steps,' " Crawford
recalled. "I told her to go and see who it was and that I would hang
on."
Minutes passed. Crawford's heart raced. She hung up and called her
sister's
next-door neighbor. Torre's had been shot, Frances was told.
"When I got there, I saw the police tape and the body," she said. "I
knew
it was him."
One of the detectives at the scene handed Crawford a Ziploc bag. It
contained her son's belongings: $82, Chapstick, a pager and a gold
chain
and cross that she had given him for his 19th birthday seven months
earlier.
Frances Crawford was shocked when she learned from a reporter that
Baskerville was the person police said killed her son.
"I heard on the street that . . . an associate of [drug kingpin] Rayful
Edmunds was charged with Torre's murder, but he's already in prison on
other stuff," Crawford said. "I never heard of Garlan Baskerville."
Suspects, But No Arrests
The Post found another pattern in D.C. homicide files: inexplicable
instances when police identified a suspect but made no arrest, only to
act
quickly to close the case after the suspect died.
Donald Lee Graham, 31, was shot seven times in the back of the head and
several times in the back in October 1996 on Clifton Street NW. A
police
officer was driving by, heard the shots and saw a man shooting downward
between two cars. The police file does not say why the officer did not
pursue the man.
A witness told police that a man named Garfield Jones said he had
killed
Graham and gave her a bag holding two guns. The witness was given a
voice-stress analysis test; a detective said she answered truthfully.
Another witness picked out Jones from a photo spread.
But police never arrested Jones. The file contains no explanation. He
remained on the streets for nine months until he was fatally shot in
August
1997. Three days later, police blamed Jones for killing Graham and
closed
the case.
Detective Gregory Archer, who was assigned to the case, said in a
recent
interview that he knew Jones was the gunman but couldn't explain why
police
didn't go after him while he was alive.
"I remember the shooting because I was there that night," said Archer,
who
retired from the force in 1998, then returned as a senior police
officer
assigned to recruiting.
Jones "was identified as the shooter, a well-known shooter in that
area,"
Archer said. "Probably, more than likely, there was not enough probable
cause or not enough witnesses" to make an arrest.
When told by a reporter that police records show that at least two
witnesses positively identified Jones as Graham's killer, Archer said
he
"can't answer" why Jones wasn't arrested.
"It didn't happen on my watch," he said. "I didn't close that case. If
I
had all that information, I would have applied for a warrant. I would
have
been looking for Garfield."
Without Merit
In addition to clearing files with dead suspects, D.C. homicide
detectives
close cases administratively without an arrest after the U.S.
attorney's
office declines prosecution.
This allows police to count a case as cleared, even though prosecutors
have
rejected it for "lack of prosecutive merit."
Officials in several police jurisdictions told The Post that they do
not
close cases this way. Said Miami-Dade Police Sgt. Gary Smith, "If our
state
attorney's office decides there's not enough evidence to prosecute, we
don't close those cases. We leave them open."
The case of Robert Neil Foster provides an example of how D.C. police
were
able to turn rejection from prosecutors into a successful statistic.
Foster was a former Army sergeant from a tiny South Carolina town who
came
to Washington after his 1984 discharge. On Dec. 3, 1993, the eve of his
37th birthday, Foster was shot three times in the head and once in the
back
outside a drug house on W Street SE.
For years, the case apparently sat uninvestigated--no updates were
entered
into the file after February 1994. Four years later, police interviewed
a
witness who identified Timothy Smith from a photo spread as Foster's
killer.
A second witness was interviewed and told police that immediately after
the
slaying, Smith admitted killing Foster. The witness also picked Smith
from
a photo spread.
Despite the two witness statements, police never charged Smith. The
U.S.
attorney's office declined to prosecute Smith.
The police closed the case and counted it as a homicide clearance.
Four months earlier--in a Sept. 30, 1997, memo--the new homicide
commander,
Alfred Broadbent, had written: "In the event the Assistant U.S.
Attorney
declines to prosecute, a general statement that the case lacks
prosecutive
merit shall not be acceptable for closing the case."
The Foster case file refers to a U.S. attorney memo that apparently
lays
out the grounds for refusing the case. D.C. police told The Post it
would
have to get the memo from the prosecutor who wrote it. The U.S.
attorney's
office said it could not find the memo and does not know who the
prosecutor is.
Circumstances suggest that the Foster case was dropped because the
suspect,
Smith, was already being prosecuted in a second homicide. He pleaded
guilty
to manslaughter in November 1997 in the 1992 death of Stephen P. Jones.
Prosecutors are allowed to use their discretion when they are
prosecuting a
defendant who faces multiple charges. They sometimes argue that it is a
waste of taxpayer money to try someone who already faces a long prison
term.
But that is not the case with Smith.
Now serving a five- to 15-year sentence, he is eligible for parole on
Oct.
26, 2006. He will be 36 years old.
No Peace for Families
A murder is a very public event, with a body, yellow police tape,
distraught relatives, sometimes TV cameras.
An arrest gives the relatives of the dead a sense of peace, of justice
being done. But a case closed administratively without an arrest enters
an
official void. It is a statistic, but it is most certainly not a public
airing.
And for relatives it offers no sense of peace or justice.
Such is the case with Wilhelmina Matthews, whose 19-year-old son, Tony,
a
security guard, was killed five years ago.
In July 1997, a detective told Matthews that the case was closed and
the
suspect was dead.
On a warm day last summer, Wilhelmina Matthews bent over and brushed
blades
of grass and specks of dirt from Tony's headstone atop a hill at
National
Harmony Memorial Park in Landover. Usually, she brings a bottle of
water
and a rag to keep the marker shiny.
"It's really hard when I look down," said Matthews, who continues to
see
a
therapist for help in dealing with her son's death.
The pain still bites, despite the passage of time. His mother said the
person responsible for Matthews's killing erroneously believed that he
was
the getaway driver in a shootout at a Southeast housing project.
Although
Tony knew the youths, his mother said he was not involved.
On Sept. 8, 1995, Tony's aunt, Ardell Payne, was going to help Tony
with
a
dead car battery when she rounded a corner and saw a foot sticking out
of
his car. She thought her nephew was reaching for something.
"Then I saw him," she recalled. "He was slumped over."
He had been shot once in the head. A stranger in the crowd that had
gathered handed Payne a towel to put under his bleeding head. She
rested
his head in her lap. "Hold on," she whispered. "Hold on."
Across town, Wilhelmina Matthews received a message from police to go
to
the 7th District station--they were holding someone named Matthews.
Then
she got a second call: Go to D.C. General Hospital. They said only that
her
son had been "injured," she said later. She arrived just as the doctor
was
telling the boy's father, aunt and cousins that Tony had died.
"No one ever said there had been a shooting," Wilhelmina Matthews
recalled.
Two detectives arrived, expressed their sympathy and told Matthews they
would get back to her.
"The police were given some leads because a friend of my nephew's came
forward six months after Tony's death and gave a name of the shooter,"
Payne said. "I thought they would close the case quickly."
But 22 months passed before the police called to say that the case had
been
closed administratively. A homicide database that police provided to
The
Post lists no suspect in the Matthews slaying. The case file contains
no
252 report explaining how the case was closed.
A document in the closed homicide file obtained by The Post contains a
numeric reference indicating that a witness picked someone out of a
photo
lineup: Anthony Howard, 21, who was killed on Sept. 2, 1996. The case
was
closed 10 months later.
For Wilhelmina Matthews, there is only a pervasive sense of loss, all
the
things missing that should be there.
After Tony's death, the police impounded his car and kept his wallet,
cell
phone, pager and a gold chain with a cross given to him by his aunt.
Evidence, they said.
When Matthews tried to retrieve the items after the case was closed,
she
said police told her they couldn't find them.
The Series
Yesterday: Despite promises of reform, homicide investigations in the
District remain seriously troubled. By the end of 1999, police had
solved
just over one-third of the homicides committed that year, the lowest
figure
in a decade, as they struggled with fundamental investigative flaws,
missing files and inexperienced supervision.
Today: Police increasingly rely on administrative closures--cases
closed
without arrests. But the files often don't say how the cases were
closed,
and the families of the victims often are not informed.
Tomorrow: As the quality of homicide investigation declined in the
District, a culture of "street justice" took hold. More than 150
homicide
suspects died on the streets during the 1990s.
Wednesday: When killers aren't arrested quickly or locked up on solid
evidence, they often have the chance to kill again. In the past 10
years,
at least 200 homicides were committed by people District police believe
had
killed before.
A Decade Later, Little Change
In 1991, The Washington Post undertook a study, published two years
later,
to determine just what happened in each of the 1,286 homicides that
took
place between 1988 and 1990. The study found that in roughly seven out
of
10 slayings, no one was held accountable.
This year, The Post set out to take a fresh look at what happened to
each
of the 310 homicides that police logged as new cases in 1997, using the
police department's homicide database, a database of homicide cases
provided by D.C. Superior Court and a database maintained on the
Internet
for U.S. District Court. Dozens of police and court files were also
examined, as were news stories.
The study, detailed in the chart here, found that while some things had
changed, the bottom line remained nearly the same.
-- Ira Chinoy
1988-90 1997
Open cases
WORSE 37% 41%
Closed without arrest
WORSE 7% 11%
Charges dismissed
BETTER 19% 9%
Acquittals
BETTER 6% 4%
All convictions
ABOUT THE SAME
Convicted of any crime 28% 30%
Unknown, pending or juvenile
ABOUT THE SAME 4% 5%
No one held accountable
ABOUT THE SAME 72% 70%
© 2000 The Washington Post Company
_____Case Closed?_____
By Ira Chinoy
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, Dec. 4, 2000; Page A15
In September 1997, under mounting pressure to reverse a steady decline
in
his department's ability to solve homicides, D.C. Police Chief Larry D.
Soulsby ordered a reorganization of the homicide unit. Six weeks later,
police announced a stunning turnaround. They had solved 42 cases since
the
shakeup -- double their usual rate.
But a look at what became of those 42 cases offers a more sober view.
Only 16 produced convictions -- and just six for murder.
In another 15 slayings, court records show that suspects avoided
conviction. Four led to acquittals. In 11, all charges were dismissed.
Two cases are still pending. Another went to juvenile court, where
records
are not public. One case, dating back to 1988, is a complete mystery:
Prosecutors say they know nothing about it, and police now say the case
is
still open.
The rest were closed without arrest. One was a murder-suicide. Four
were
blamed on dead suspects. One police case file yields no clue as to why
it
was closed. And one was closed because the suspect was already in
prison
for another crime.
In November 1997, the new commander of the homicide squad singled out
one
of the cases for special recognition. A squad of six homicide
investigators
from headquarters, together with a sergeant, helped detectives make two
arrests in 48 hours in the beating death of a 78-year-old woman.
But one of the defendants was acquitted after two trials, and charges
against the other were dismissed.
As these 42 cases illustrate, short-term reforms may not bring lasting
results. Only a third of the cases led to convictions for murder or
manslaughter. That was worse than the 4-in-10 rate found in a 1993
Washington Post study detailing the city's problems in delivering
justice
for homicide victims.
WHAT HAPPENED IN THE 42 CASES "CLOSED" IN FALL 1997:
7 Closed without an arrest
3 Plea to lesser charges
13 Pleas and convictions
4 Outcome pending or unknown
4 Acquittals
11 Charges dismissed
ofr5...@hotmail.com
Secret service agent indicted for theft of evidence cash (Michael
Novick , Wed 2:14)
Secret Service Agent Indicted
Associated Press
Last Updated: Dec. 5, 2000 at 11:20:09 p.m.
PHILADELPHIA - A Secret Service agent has been indicted for allegedly
stealing more than $2,000 from evidence collected during searches and
trying to conceal it from investigators.
Prosecutors said Michael Cohen, who was an assistant to the head of the
Philadelphia office of the Secret Service, took cash seized in searches
of
the homes of two people under criminal investigation.
In addition to protecting top politicians, the Secret Service
investigates
certain financial crimes such as currency conterfeiting, forgery of
government securities, credit card fraud and identity theft.
Neither Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael L. Levy nor Jim Washington,
special
agent in charge of the Philadelphia Secret Service office, would say
how
the alleged thefts were discovered. Washington said Cohen hasn't worked
for
the Secret Service since March, but he wouldn't say if Cohen resigned
or
was fired.
Cohen, 37, was charged with two counts of theft of government funds and
one
each of obstruction of justice, witness tampering and making a false
statement on an evidence form.
``I think that they give a distorted and inaccurate sense of what
occurred,'' said Cohen's attorney, Robert N. de Luca.
De Luca said he wouldn't elaborate until he spoke with his client, but
he
said Cohen had a ``distinguished career as a Secret Service agent.''
In one case, agents seized $3,173 during a search but Cohen reported
seizing only $1,173, prosecutors said. In another, agents seized $800
and
Cohen gave half to another agent under his authority, according to the
indictment. Cohen then told the agent to return the money so Cohen
could
give it to a charity, prosecutors said.
The former agent had not been arrested as of Tuesday, but was expected
to
surrender, Levy said. If convicted of all charges, Cohen faces a
maximum
sentence of 46 years in prison and a $1.35 million fine.
On the Net:
U.S. attorney's office: http://www.usao-edpa.com/
ofr5...@hotmail.com
Black Man Paralyzed in Police Beating Awarded $2M (radman ,
Wed 16:12)
Man Awarded $2M in Police Beating
http://news.findlaw.com/ap/o/1110/12-6-2000/20001206113959520.html
Man Awarded $2M in Police Beating
BALTIMORE (AP) _ A man who said a beating by city police left him
paralyzed from the waist down has been awarded $2 million by a jury.
Horace Muhammad, 52, won the judgment against officer Joseph Tracy
after
a three-week trial in Baltimore Circuit Court.
``His life has been devastated,'' his attorney Samuel M. Shapiro said.
``I think the $2 million award will allow him to live with a little bit
of dignity and allow him to be a little self-sufficient.''
Muhammad said the beating occurred after police came to his fiancee's
house in response to a domestic-violence call in 1997. He followed
police instruction to leave and went to a nearby friend's house, but
was
thrown down onto that home's porch and beaten by officers, Shapiro
said.
The jury on Monday found Tracy liable for malicious prosecution and the
violation of Muhammad's rights, Shapiro said. Three other accused
officers and two ambulance personnel were cleared of wrongdoing.
Neither Tracy nor his lawyer could be reached for comment. City police
also declined to comment.
AP-NY-12-06-00 0645EST
ofr5...@hotmail.com
Crisis Intervention: SFPD Needs it Now! (radman , Thu 0:31)
Crisis Intervention: SFPD Needs it Now!
Marykate Connor
San Francisco STREET SHEET online # 2 -- 10-11/00
Five years ago, A collaboration of mental health consumers, mental
health
survivors, and front-line mental health providers and advocates began a
process to address the growing problem of the police killing people
with
psychiatric disabilities ‹ a burgeoning national trend. Decreases in
funding
for treatment and other services for mentally ill people has caught up
with
increases in funds for łpublic safety˛ (more police, more prisons)
across
the nation.
We met with experts of all kinds, including people who have
psychiatric
illness, people who have psychiatric labels, and police officers,
mental
health workers and families of people killed by łlegal intervention.˛
We
came up with a proposal that would allow the police to do something
else
besides shoot people who would not or could not follow łcommand and
control˛ procedures that our police are trained to use, and would give
police officers a different perspective on all of us who might be
deemed
as
łcrazy˛ in a crisis.
The proposal was simple ‹ take officers who volunteered for this
special
unit, give them more than the 4 hours of training on psychiatric issues
that
they now get, and most importantly give them cultural and institutional
support for dealing with people in crisis. Teach them to approach
behavioral
issues with understanding, not fear, patronization (and frequent
derision)
or the inevitable power struggle.
What could be better? Less violence, more understanding, better
support
for better trained police, and a cultural shift away from a
para-military
organization that trains and rewards its members to put down by force
anything or anyone deemed dangerous.
Weąve seen far too many examples of San Francisco police
encountering
people who had psychiatric illnesses that resulted in death for those
people, and felt confident that the police themselves would like to
learn
methods to handle these situations with better outcomes.
We were wrong.
After numerous meetings (3+ years worth of meetings) at the Board
of
Supervisors, the Police Commission, with the Mayor, and at public
forums,
the program was funded. The police were not happy about this, but had
to
recognize the program because by that point we actually got them the
money
to do it.
Then, we tackled the arduous task of creating the details of the
training program with SFPD.
This took the better part of a year. There were predictable
impasses,
much disagreement and finally a training curriculum, based on other
programs
in other cities that had come up with the same solution to the same
problem.
San Jose, Memphis, Portland, Albuquerque all had this kind of program
in
place based on the same principal: teach officers to see psychiatric
disabilities as nether dangerous or threatening, and support them for
responding with a different approach from łcommand and control˛.
By now, this was nothing radical or innovative. It was simply good
police practice, as mandated by the Department of Justice in their 1998
manual for ADA training of all police departments.
So, why donąt we have this program in San Francisco?
Well, funny you should ask.
Perhaps itąs because the officer in charge of putting this program
together is running a training program in his spare time as a
consultant
to
other police departments on disability issues, and doesnąt want to
allow
risks on his cut of the future action.
Perhaps it is because a couple of San Franciscoąs Police Chiefs
have
issues of their own in coordinating their communcations. (We spent six
months with one chief, got his łfull support˛ and now the other Chief
is
nixing this.) There are many rumored reasons and rationalizations for
this
gaffe in organizational competency ‹ none of them are encouraging.
The hardest thing to swallow is that the whole process has been a
textbook study in institutional stonewalling, and it has to stop.
The SFPD must not be allowed to co-opt and bastardize this
program,
especially since they already determined to do so by reducing the
training
from 40 hours to 20, PLUS having fully half of those 20 hours devoted
to
weapons training. Weapons training is what SFPD wants to do with the
money
that we wrung from the Cityąs budget for the Police Crisis Intervention
program. It is so far from the original concept, that it is
unrecognizable.
It does, however, allow the police to keep their paramilitary culture
intact, and use their fancy weapons training simulator.
One thing is clear- the SFPD doesnąt really want to change the way it
responds to people with disabling psychiatric conditions. Let us be
even
clearer. We will make sure that they do.
ofr5...@hotmail.com
Justice for Abuka Sanders planning meeting
JUSTICE FOR ALFRED "ABUKA" SANDERS -- PLANNING MEETING
Saturday, December 9 4:00 P.M.
Sabathani Community Center (check bulletin board for room)
310 E. 38th St., Minneapolis
Alfred "Abuka" Sanders was the young man who was brutally murdered by
Minneapolis police on November 1st. Unarmed and returning home from
work,
he was shot 35 times in the alleyway near his home for allegedly
driving
erratically. A well-loved musician, activist and community leader, he
leaves behind a wife and four young children. Abuka had attended a
number
of Mumia support events and even the October 22 National Day of Protest
Against Police Brutality events in Minneapolis prior to his death. The
purpose of this meeting is to plan events to demand justice for Abuka
and
his family. The cops responsible for his death must be prosecuted!
ofr5...@hotmail.com
Timoney prides himself on having brought about a reduction in crime in
Philadelphia. He also claims to have overhauled the way crime
statistics
are recorded. But, the Philadelphia City Controller’s office found
that,
under Timoney, the Philadelphia PD neglected to report between 13,000
and
37,000 major crimes in 1998 alone. Timoney’s emphasis on crime
statistics
put pressure on cops to under-report serious crimes. The Philadelphia
PD
has routinely downgraded serious crimes like burglary to “lost and fund
property,” and didn’t record other crimes at all (Philadelphia
Inquirer,
9/13/00, 9/20/2000). Many people feel safer in Timoney’s Philadelphia.
In
fact, “The city has become far more appealing to municipal bond
investors,
office workers, tourists, conventioneers, and young dot-commers.” But
not
everyone shares this perception, according to USA Today, in the time
Timoney has been commissioner, “Philadelphia County has lost more
people
than any other in the USA” (8/13/00).
Isn’t Timoney and his force accountable to the Philadelphia Police
Advisory
Commission?
Complaints of police misconduct have reached record levels in Timoney’s
Philadelphia: according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, reports to the
city’s
Police Advisory Commission for the fiscal year 2000 were “the most the
commission had had received in a single year. ” Similarly, when
Timoney
was the First Deputy to New York City’s Police Commissioner, civilian
complaints about police abuse rose by 50 percent in communities of
color.
Disciplinary recommendations by the Police Advisory Commission, which
has
no enforcement power, have been virtually ignored by Timoney. Of the
13
recommendations and 17 opinions the commission has issued, Timoney has
implemented one; a meager one-day suspension. He has rejected even the
most symbolic forms of punishment, such as ten-day
suspensions. Commission members have publicly complained that Timoney
has
rendered their work completely useless. (Philadelphia Inquirer,
11/17/00,
AP 11/17/00). Timoney has adopted tactics like issuing decisions
before
he
even receives the Advisory Commission’s recommendations. The Police
Advisory Commission’s Executive Director Hector Soto has called
Timoney’s
behavior “an attack on the concept of our commission” (Philadelphia
Weekly,
11/29/00).
According to Amnesty International’s June 1996 report on the NYPD,
which
used official police statistics, in 1994, the first year that Timoney
was
second in command at the NYPD, the city saw ‘a 34% increase in
civilians
shot dead. ”In the same year, there was also a “53.3% increase in
civilians
shot dead in police custody” as well as “an increase in the number of
civilians injured from officers’ firearms discharge during the same
period.” Amnesty also reports that the New York City Civilian Review
Board
“reported that it received 4,920 new complaints in 1994 , an increase
of
37.43 percent over the previous year” (Amnesty International, Police
Brutality in the New York City Police Department).
Timoney claims that he won’t tolerate abusive cops, and has said that
he’s
“got to be held responsible for the integrity of the department.” What
has
he done to prevent police violence?
When he first took office, Timoney restructured the department’s
Internal
Affairs division, giving himself the ability to fire officers who were
found guilty by the division. But Timoney has only acted when forced
to. In the case of officer Christopher Di Pasquale who killed the
unarmed
Donta Dawson, the Commissioner refused to fire the officer until after
Philadelphia’s District Attorney brought him up on manslaughter
charges. Timoney also refused to act on an Internal Affairs report
that
found that officers who paralyzed 21 year-old Calvin Saunders engaged
in
brutality, conspiracy, and perjury. One f the guilty officers has even
been promoted to detective. The commissioner justifies his inaction
with
the excuse that “Just because I.A. [Internal Affairs} sustains the
allegations doesn’t mean the men are guilty” (Philadelphia Magazine,
10/3/00).
In the case of Thomas Jones, where 10 officers were videotaped kicking
and
hitting the suspect 59 times in 29 seconds, Timoney told the media
“When
somebody doesn’t want to get arrested there really isn’t an easy way of
doing it.” Even after charges were dropped against the suspect,
Timoney
was adamant about the need to “look at what was on the officers’
minds.”
Timoney was hailed by the press for his department’s “restrained”
behavior
during this past summer’s protests at the Republican National
Convention. How did Timoney and his department really behave?
During demonstrations against the criminal justice system in
Philadelphia
this past summer, the commissioner executed preemptive strikes in order
to
silence activists; his force illegally shut down a meeting spaces used
by
the Kensington Welfare Rights Union and other groups. One raid was
executed with a sealed warrant, and justified in a later affidavit
which
relied on research by the ultra-right wing FBI informant John Rees, and
claimed that many of the protesters were funded by former Soviet bloc
countries. As this showsTimoney will use any tactic available to
eliminate
dissent. Timoney has repeatedly called for Mcarthy-style Federal
investigations of the growing protest movement. Such a witch-hunt
would
undoubtedly go after opponents of police brutality. This could ruin
many
of the activists present at this very conference.
During the Philadelphia demonstrations Timoney’s men conducted rampant
illegal infiltration and surveillance of activists. He also used State
Troopers as infiltrators and agent provocateurs as a way of violating
an
injunction which prohibits the Philadelphia police from infiltrating
political groups.
His department lied about these tactics, until the Philadelphia
Inquirer
actually documented it. As of this writing, he is trying to evade
testifying on the matter. He even claimed that Protesters, who were
routinely tortured in jail were covering themselves in feces while
locked
up. He also told reporters that protesters were employing a busload of
poisonous snakes and insects! He was later forced to admit he was
lying. Timoney’s force carried out preemptive raids on activists for
offenses such as walking down the street, or carrying cell
phones--bails
were set as high as one million dollars.
After a confrontation with demonstrators, Timoney bragged to the press
“We
jumped them.” He let his strategy for handling demonstrators slip to
the
Washington Post: “You just have to make sure you keep one hand around
one
of their throats” (8/3/00).
quotable quotes:
John Timoney: Anatomy of a Thug
“At the end of the day, I’ve got to be held responsible for the
integrity
of the department.”
--Philadelphia Magazine, 10/03/00
“You just have to make sure that you keep one hand around one of their
throats”
--Timoney’s method for managing protesters (Washington Post, 8/3/00)
Some of the best insight into the way Timoney’s mind operates can be
gleaned from the autobiography of former NYPD commissioner William
Bratton. It was during Bratton’s tenure that the NYPD adopted its
“quality
of life” policing offensive. Timoney served as Bratton’s right-hand
man,
and was part of the elite clique that carried out the NYPD’s war on the
poorespecialy those of color, and the homeless.
Bratton’s book, Turnaround, contains much effusive praise for
Timoney. That Timoney’s tough-guy stance has drawn such praise, and
brought him prestige and financial rewards is no coincidence; all of
the
commissioner’s strong qualitiesexcessive force as policy; the ability
to
gloss over such acts in front of a cameraare all essential to the
future
of
policing.
Some choice quotes on the ”Cop’s cop” Bratton so admires follow:
“Knowledge and Compassion”
“At a time when there was a great pressure from the district attorney’s
office, the US Attorneys, the Mollen Commision, and Walter Mack at
NYPD’s
Internal Affairs Division be holierthan-thou, and cleaner than clean, I
needed balance. Timoney spoke for the cops about what it’s really like
out
there. The prosecutors had never experienced the streets. They
espoused
high morals and ethics but were lacking in the human compassion they
might
have developed had they been there. I could never forgive truly dirty
cops, but I could understand those others who found themselves jammed
up
for making a momentary mistake. What Timoney brought to the table was
knowledge and compassion” [for brutal cops]” (Bratton, 204.)
“Going Native” Timoney’s Heart of Darkness
It’s not just radical activists who like to refer to cops as an
occupying
army. Media-friendly cops like Timoney and Bratton also share this
view. Note the racist language:
“A cop will try to stay within the bounds of acceptable behavior, but
sometimes, when he gets immersed in the job, he begins to identify more
with the people in the street than with his own family and friends.
The
bad guys become reality. In high-crime precincts, cops spend a lot of
their time dealing with hardcore criminals, sociopaths and
psychopaths. Timoney himself, when he was younger and worked in the
Forty-fourth precinct in the South Bronx, began to feel that anyone who
wasn’t facing violence and street morality all day long was, in the
language of the street, a maricon. He recognized a metamorphosis
occurring
in himself. He was living the nitty-gritty, everybody else was in some
ivory tower. Even off-duty and among friends, he was acting more like
them. Timoney describes it as “going native” (Bratton, 241, emphasis
in
original).
A Delicate Balance
It’s not easy being a cop. There are times when you just want to let
loose, but you an only get away with so much:
Bratton went to great pains to figure out, “How could we do what
Timoney
said was needed without kicking guys in the balls?” (Bratton, 245).
Timoney, Historian
Reporters like to brag about how sharp Timoney is. He reads Joyce;
he’s
got two masters degrees; he hangs out with famous authors. But this
renaissance man is even less of an erudite than he is a maricon:
“It’s about nomenclature. It’s about describing words to do what we
do. They used to call it stakeout down here. I changed it to SWAT. A
stakeout is an entirely different thing. You hide in the back of the
bodega, and when the bad guy comes in, you blow his head off…”
(Esquire,
6/2000).
“Sitting around the trees, holding hands, and singing ‘Kumbaya’.”
“In philosophy, Timoney represents a turn away from community
policingor
in
his derisive description, ‘sitting around the trees, holding hands and
singing Kumbaya’.” (Esquire, 6/2000).
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NJ City settles brutality suit with driver who was beaten
City settles brutality suit with driver who was beaten
----------
Paterson, New Jersey, has agreed to pay $75,000 to a man who was
beaten by an off-duty police officer after a traffic accident.
(11/30/00)
http://www.bergen.com/paterson/smithmc200011304.htm
City settles brutality suit with driver who was beaten
Thursday, November 30, 2000
By MICHAEL CASEY
Staff Writer
PATERSON -- The City Council has voted unanimously to settle a lawsuit
against a former police officer who was at the center of a federal
investigation into police brutality and later pleaded guilty to assault
charges.
The council awarded Marino Guzman $75,000 Tuesday to drop his federal
lawsuit against the city, Councilman Thomas C. Rooney Jr. said.
The lawsuit stems from a 1996 altercation in which former officer
Stanley Smith admitted in court to beating Guzman after the Dominican
immigrant rear-ended his pickup truck. Smith was off-duty at the time.
In 1998, Smith pleaded guilty to beating Guzman and received probation.
The guilty plea followed a federal case, in which Smith received five
years probation for pleading guilty to beating a man during a 1993
arrest.
As a result of his pleas, Smith became the only Paterson officer
convicted during a three-year federal probe into brutality at the city
Police Department.
Officials said it was in the best interests of the city to settle the
lawsuit.
Guzman's lawyer, Jay Lowenstein of Paterson, said his client was glad
the council endorsed the settlement. But he still has a federal lawsuit
pending against Smith, who lives in Virginia.
"He's happy to have this put behind him," Lowenstein said. "He feels
basically that the city has dealt with him reasonably."
Guzman said he recalled how he bumped the back of Smith's pickup truck
on a hot summer evening. Thinking nothing of it, he apologized to the
agitated Smith and figured the two would then part ways.
Instead, the 6-foot-7-inch Smith handcuffed the 5-foot-7-inch immigrant
and repeatedly punched him in the face. Guzman ended up in Barnert
Hospital, where, over six days of treatment, doctors inserted three
screws to repair broken bones and his left eye socket.
"He was hitting me and calling me ethnic slurs," Guzman said at the
time. "He was very mad, and he was acting crazy. . . . I really thought
he was going to kill me, because I saw all this blood."
Guzman was charged with driving while intoxicated, failing to take a
Breathalyzer test, and aggravated assault. But when the case reached a
grand jury, the panel indicted Smith instead of Guzman.
Lowenstein said his client, a day laborer, still suffers from the
beating.
"He still has pain in his cheek area," Lowenstein said. "He is
constantly in pain. He's working, but he is constantly in pain."
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Cop went for mental care after wife's disappearance
Saturday, November 18, 2000
By PAULO LIMA
Staff Writer
Two days after he reported his wife missing, Port
Authority po lice Sgt. Rocco Cuccio accompanied
officers to a Rockland County mental hospital after
they found him depressed and talking to himself on a
firing range, police said.
The revelation was the latest about Cuccio in the
days surrounding the disappearance of his wife,
Janyce, 45, formerly of Old Tappan, who was found
strangled and beaten to death beside a Rockland
highway Nov. 10.
Clarkstown police Friday also disclosed dispatch
records that showed officers went to the couple's
Valley Cottage home three times in a seven-week
span this summer to quell domestic disturbances. In
at least one of those cases, records show, Janyce
Cuccio filed a complaint against her husband but
dropped it about a month later.
Cuccio, a 23-year veteran assigned to Newark
International Airport, has not spoken with
investigators since his wife's body was found, said
Clarkstown police Sgt. Steve Morgan. Police have
not identified any suspects in her slaying.
Janyce Cuccio's family reported her missing Nov. 3,
the day after she was last seen at the family home.
Two days later, Rocco Cuccio went to The Firing
Line pistol range in Pearl River, N.Y., where he
rented a 9mm pistol to fire for the day, said one of
the range's owners, Steve Eisenberg.
Cuccio handled the gun responsibly, Eisenberg said,
but was clearly very depressed. Eisenberg and his
partner watched him closely as he hung around the
range shooting from about 11:30 a.m. through
nightfall, he said.
"It was obvious that you would want to keep an
extra eye on him and get the gun away from him
eventually before he hurt himself," Eisenberg said.
Range employees called Orangetown police, who
went to the range to check on him, said Orangetown
Detective Sgt. Douglas MacDonnell.
"He was talking to himself and he seemed
despondent," MacDonnell said. "He didn't have a
weapon with him when our officers arrived. They
spoke to him and decided that he should go for
mental help.
"It was a voluntary thing. They said, 'Maybe you
should talk to someone,' and he said, 'Yeah, I'll go.' "
The Orangetown officers drove him to the county's
mental health complex in Pomona, where Cuccio
agreed to seek treatment, MacDonnell said.
MacDonnell did not know how long Cuccio
remained at the hospital.
Cuccio had to rent a gun at the range because Port
Authority police officials had already stripped him of
all his firearms. It was unclear why or when the guns
were taken from him, however.
Port Authority police officials declined to comment,
other than to confirm that Cuccio was still employed
by the department.
The incident at the firing range was not the first time
Cuccio had been referred for mental help.
In the days before his wife's disappearance, the
Sergeant's Benevolent Association had asked him to
see a stress counselor, according to Sgt. Mark
O'Neill, the union president. O'Neill said he did not
know whether Cuccio ever met with a counselor.
In the days after his wife's body was found, Cuccio
did seek mental help, checking himself into Holy
Name Hospital in Teaneck. Police and hospital
officials would not say when Cuccio was admitted,
although it was confirmed that he left the hospital
Wednesday.
The phone at Cuccio's home went unanswered twice
Friday.
Clarkstown police would not release details about
the three domestic violence calls to the Cuccio home
this summer -- on June 4, June 8, and Aug. 23.
Court records show that Janyce Cuccio filed a
complaint after the second incident, charging her
husband with domestic violence.
Rockland County family court Judge William Warren
immediately issued a temporary order of protection,
which Janyce Cuccio tried to withdraw the following
day, a court source said. Warren would not allow
her to withdraw the complaint, however, and
ordered it to remain in effect until a scheduled
hearing July 6.
At the July 6 hearing, Janyce Cuccio again asked to
withdraw the complaint and void the order of
protection, the source said. The judge granted the
order.
"The judge questioned her at length why she wanted
to do this," the source said. "He gave her every
opportunity to follow through with it."
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- NJ cop Busted For Gun With No Serial Number -
Defaced pistol is found in cop locker
Friday, December 1, 2000
By PAULO LIMA
Staff Writer
PARAMUS -- Authorities acting on a
domestic-violence complaint against a veteran
borough detective found an illegal handgun in his
locker at police headquarters.
The Bergen County Prosecutor's Office is
investigating the discovery in November of the
weapon -- a .45-caliber semiautomatic with its
serial number removed -- in the locker of Detective
Al Sodaro, said First Assistant Prosecutor Fred
Schwanwede.
Under state law, possessing a gun without a serial
number -- which is used to trace the ownership of
weapons -- is a crime punishable by up to 18
months in prison.
Sodaro, 36, has not been charged with a crime. But
he has been on paid suspension since a judge
ordered him to surrender all his firearms after his
wife, Susan, filed the domestic violence complaint.
Susan Sodaro filed her complaint Nov. 2, and a
judge issued a temporary order of protection
against Al Sodaro the next day, Schwanwede said.
The law requires anyone -- not just police officers
-- against whom a domestic order of protection has
been issued to surrender any firearms to the police
in their town of residence. In Sodaro's case, he was
asked to turn them in to his department.
"He also told them he had guns in his locker, which
per se is not unusual," Schwanwede said. "They
went to the locker to take custody of those, and
that's when they discovered one was defaced."
Paramus police notified the Prosecutor's Office
upon discovering the gun. The incident is being
investigated by the prosecutor's special
investigations unit, Schwanwede said.
"Certainly as a police officer he should be aware of
the regulations regarding the acquisition of guns,"
Schwanwede said.
Removing a serial number from a gun makes it
difficult for law enforcement to trace its ownership
history. Criminals often file off serial numbers to
hinder police efforts at tracing guns that have been
stolen or used to commit crimes.
The police have developed methods for reading
serial numbers in some cases even after they have
been removed. Schwanwede would not comment
on whether the gun found in Sodaro's locker was
being subjected to those tests.
Sodaro has been a police officer since August 1986
and earns a base salary of $84,259, according to
Paramus borough records.
Before his suspension, he was assigned to the
department's Bureau of Criminal Identification,
where his duties included processing evidence, said
Police Chief Claude Majcher.
Beyond describing Sodaro's duties and confirming
that he was on paid suspension, Majcher referred
additional questions to the Prosecutor's Office.
Schwanwede said he could not provide any more
information about the incident in Mahwah that
prompted Susan Sodaro's complaint. It was a
civilian complaint, and Sodaro was not arrested.
Whenever police officers are asked to turn in their
handguns, they are usually placed on suspension or
are assigned to another post in which they won't
need their guns. Sodaro is entitled to get his guns
back if the domestic complaint against him is
dropped or dismissed by the court.
Neither Al Sodaro nor his attorney returned
telephone calls seeking comment on Thursday.
In his 14 years on the force, Sodaro has made
headlines a few times.
In 1997, Sodaro fired five shots at an armed
robbery suspect who tried to run over him with a
car outside the Radisson Hotel on From Road. The
shots did not strike the driver but forced him to
crash into another police car. Sodaro and other
officers arrested him.
Four years earlier, Sodaro saved two elderly
women from a burning home on Farview Avenue.
He carried out one of the women, a 72-year-old,
then returned inside to help her 91-year-old
roommate out of the smoke-filled house. Sodaro
was treated for smoke inhalation after the rescue.
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Michigan news briefs
December 8, 2000
DETROIT
Cop to stand trial in fatal shooting
A Wayne County probate judge has cleared the
way for a civil trial stemming from a fatal shooting
by Detroit Police Officer Eugene Brown.
Brown fatally shot Lamar Grable, 20, of Detroit
during a foot chase in 1996. Brown, who has killed
three people in nine shootings during his six-year
career, said he shot Grable after Grable opened fire
on him, striking his bullet-proof vest. Brown was
initially cleared in the shootings, however, a 2000
reexamination of the shootings concluded that the
Grable shooting and three others were unjustified.
The department is reviewing the latest investigation.
Grable's mother, Arnetta Grable, the representative
of his estate, sued Brown in Wayne County Circuit
Court. Last month, she refused to accept the City
of Detroit's $2-million settlement offer, prompting a
court-appointed lawyer for Lamar Grable's
daughter to ask a probate court to have Arnetta
Grable removed on grounds she wasn't
representing the interests of the child.
Wayne County Probate Judge Milton Mack
refused Thursday to approve the request. The civil
trial is expected to begin Monday before Wayne
County Circuit Judge Isidore Torres.
By David Ashenfelter
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Dumont top cop
retiring; role in DWI
flap detailed
Saturday, December 9, 2000
By PAULO LIMA
Staff Writer
Dumont Police Chief Michael Affrunti abruptly
announced his retirement Friday, just hours after one
of his patrolmen testified in court that the chief
prevented him from arresting a borough councilman
on drunken driving charges last summer.
Affrunti's unexpected retirement was announced
Friday evening at a hastily convened emergency
Borough Council meeting. Council members
appointed Capt. Warren Kaine as acting chief.
Affrunti, 63, had been the subject of an investigation
by the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office into the
events surrounding the July 22 DWI stop of
then-Councilman Philip Fredericks.
Fredericks, 45, was released that morning and then
charged with DWI nine days later, after the Bergen
County Prosecutor's Office became involved in the
investigation. His trial began Friday in Central
Municipal Court in Hackensack.
The state's first witness, Officer Vincent Tamburro,
gave damning testimony about the chief's alleged
role in setting Fredericks free that morning.
"The chief advised me that he could not let this
happen, that he would not let me process Mr.
Fredericks," Tamburro testified. "I told him I
disagreed with that."
Affrunti did not return calls seeking comment Friday
night. He is on paid leave of absence until March 1,
when his retirement becomes effective. He has been
a Dumont police officer for 37 years.
Kaine, 62, has been with the department for 36
years. He takes over the 27-officer department until
the council selects a permanent successor.
"I would like the job, but I didn't want to get it this
way," Kaine said Friday night.
Tamburro testified that he had given Fredericks a
ride home in his patrol car when he found the
councilman reeking of alcohol and passed out
behind the wheel of his car in a parking lot beside
the Knights of Columbus hall on Armour Place.
They left Fredericks' white Mercury Mountaineer
sport-utility vehicle in the parking lot.
When they arrived back at Fredericks' New Milford
Avenue home about 4:30 a.m., Tamburro said,
Fredericks could not tell where he was.
"In a slurred manner, Mr. Fredericks stated to me
that he had no [expletive] idea," Tamburro said. "I
told him, 'Phil, that's your house and I'm Officer
Tamburro of the Dumont police.' "
At 5:37 a.m., Tamburro said, he spotted Fredericks'
Mountaineer weaving down Prospect Avenue and
pulled him over.
"He said, 'I only have a block and a half to go. Can
you give me a break?' " Tamburro quoted
Fredericks as saying.
Instead, Tamburro said, he gave Fredericks a field
sobriety test, which he said the councilman failed
miserably. He then drove Fredericks to police
headquarters, where he handcuffed him in a holding
area. A sergeant then called Affrunti at home to ask
him whether they should call an outside police
agency to administer a Breathalyzer test.
Affrunti arrived minutes later and immediately began
railing at Fredericks, Tamburro said.
"I'm tired of this," Tamburro recalled Affrunti saying.
"I'm tired of getting you out of trouble. You've got
me over a barrel this time."
Affrunti disappeared into his office for a few
minutes, then summoned Tamburro and the two
other officers involved in the case, Chris Barzelatto
and Sgt. Thomas Gorman, Tamburro said.
The chief told the officers he did not want the bad
publicity that Fredericks' arrest would generate,
Tamburro said. As they left the chief's office,
Tamburro testified, he noticed that Mayor Donald
Winant had arrived at police headquarters.
Fredericks' attorney, David Hoffman, argued that
his client signed a document consenting to a breath
test. The fact that police never gave him the test was
not Fredericks' fault, he said.
Hoffman also argued that Fredericks' childhood
polio and other physical ailments contributed to his
failing the roadside sobriety test.
The trial is scheduled to continue Thursday.
Winant would not comment on the case following
the borough council meeting Friday night.
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12/11/2000 - Monday - Page A 16
ONE POLICE PLAZA
Confidential
DA, Police, Probe
Cop's Car
Accident
by Leonard Levitt
Staff Writer
The Police Department and the Queens district
attorney are investigating the circumstances
surrounding a minor car accident involving a
top police union official, law enforcement
officials have told Newsday.
The officials say they doubt that criminal or
even administrative charges can be filed
against the official for lack of evidence.
Charges, they say, are more likely to be filed
against the two responding officers who failed
to follow procedure either because the official
intimidated them or they were trying to protect
him.
According to the accident report the two
officers filed, the accident occurred at 11:30
p.m. Nov. 29, when Walter Liddy, the
Patrolmen's Benevolent Association trustee for
Manhattan Borough South, rear-ended a jeep
on Queens Boulevard and Queens Plaza
South.
The jeep was driven by Donald Donofrio of
Montauk. Liddy, who was driving a 1999
Ford, registered to the union at 40 Fulton St.,
maintained Donofrio's car "stopped suddenly,"
the report said. "When he applied his brakes,
his vehicle slid into [the Jeep]..." A source
familiar with the case said that when the two
officers requested Liddy's license and
registration, Liddy complied but became
abusive, shouting, "Do you know who I am?"
He stormed off and drove away, apparently
forgetting he had left his license and
registration.
Instead of notifying their superior officer, as is
required when an off-duty police officer is
involved in an incident, the two officers merely
filed their accident report, listing Liddy as the
driver. No mention was made of the
circumstances of his leaving the scene.
Department brass only became aware of the
incident when one of the Jeep's occupants
notified the Internal Affairs Bureau, suggesting
Liddy may have been intoxicated.
Liddy, who through a PBA spokesman
declined to comment, and IAB have tangled in
the past.
During the Midtown South brothel scandal
two years ago, in which officers allegedly
frequented and/or allowed a brothel to flourish
for years, Liddy was the precinct delegate and
insisted he be present at every interview of the
suspected officers during the investigation.
Although a minor accident is normally
investigated by a borough inspections unit, the
current case is under investigation by IAB's
Group One, which pursues high-profile cases,
including those involving captains and above.
Law enforcement sources say Group One has
already questioned the two responding cops,
who are assigned to the 108th Precinct. The
case is also being examined by the Queens
District Attorney's Integrity Bureau.
Reached by telephone Friday, Donofrio said
he had spoken to IAB, then added, "No one
got hurt. Don't bother me with this." .
The Secret Order? Who ordered scores of
uniformed officers off patrol Tuesday
afternoon to attend a ceremony at St. Francis
College in Brooklyn at which former Police
Commissioner Howard Safir served as guest
speaker and received an honorary law
degree? Police sources say all precinct
captains and executive officers from the 10
precincts of Brooklyn Patrol Borough North
were ordered to attend. Each precinct captain
was ordered to bring a sergeant "plus
five"-meaning five patrol officers.
Brooklyn North's commanding officer,
Assistant Chief James L. Ward,
acknowledged the large turnout of uniformed
officers at the ceremony but disputed the
"sergeant plus five" order.
"Some guys had more than others," he said.
The turnout so impressed St. Francis'
president, Frank Macchiarola, who when
introducing Safir cited the large number of men
in blue in the audience as a tribute to him.
Deputy Chief Tom Fahey of the department's
public information office said, "There was no
order." The order-described as a telephone
message-is believed to have originated with
First Deputy Joltin' Joe Dunne, a 1969
graduate of St. Francis, a private Catholic
college. Dunne, who did not return a call,
attended the ceremony with his Dynamic Duo
partner, Chief of Department Joe Esposito.
Both are former commanding officers of
Brooklyn North.
When he resigned in August, Safir lobbied
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani to appoint Dunne his
successor. Instead, the mayor appointed
Bernard Kerik. Kerik did not attend the
ceremony.
Safir, who was awarded an honorary degree
in civil law, attended Brooklyn law school for
two semesters but did not graduate.
.
The Air Bag Made Her Do It. That's the
theory of the Police Department's Internal
Affairs Bureau as to why Brooklyn Chief Judy
McGinn struck five parked cars over a
two-block area before crashing her police
vehicle through the brick facade and metal
door of a body shop across the street. The
theory goes that when she struck the first car,
her air bag opened and disoriented her.
Graham Rayman contributed to this column.
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Cop Cited For DUI While Driving Police Car
Kentucky Officer Not Injured In Accident
LOUISVILLE, Posted 9:32 a.m. EST December 11, 2000 -- An off-duty
Louisville police officer was charged with drunken driving after an
accident in her
marked police cruiser Saturday.
Natalie "Shelly" Cunningham, 32, has been suspended from her job,
Louisville
police detective Bill Keeling said.
Cunningham was charged with driving under the influence shortly after 2
a.m.,
according to the arrest citation. She was taken to the Jefferson County
Jail and
released later in the day.
Cunningham, who is assigned to the third district in southern
Louisville, has
permission to take the cruiser home during her non-working hours.
Cunningham was involved in a one-car, non-injury accident, and "smelled
of
alcohol," according to the arrest citation.
Court records showed that a breath test found that Cunningham's
blood-alcohol
level was .083 percent, which is above the .08 legal threshold for
drunken
driving.
The arrest slip said that Cunningham passed a field sobriety test.
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Stronger police oversight proposed, but
chief says current system OK
By MIKE GOODWIN
Gazette Reporter
SCHENECTADY - The city's all-volunteer police review board should be
replaced by a paid
committee with powers to investigate complaints of police misconduct
and
recommend discipline to
the chief, activists said Monday night.
"Having the Police Department investigate themselves, we feel that is a
no-no," said Rev. Eloise
Fraizer, a former member of the city's police oversight body, the
Police
Objective Review
Committee, and the current chairwoman of the Schenectady County Human
Rights Commission. "If
they investigate themselves, they will come out scot free."
The Police Department currently conducts its own internal affairs
investigations and then turns over
some of their findings to the PORC, a seven-member panel empowered
primarily to review the
thoroughness of the department's investigation.
But activists and some members of the PORC said the information they
receive makes it difficult to
determine if a thorough investigation was done and, if so, what was
determined.
They said they want to see the PORC replaced with a Citizen's Police
Review Board, a paid panel
of private citizens that would have the authority to investigate
complaints filed against the police and
then recommend penalties. The estimated annual cost of the board would
be about $200,000.
But, Police Chief Gregory T. Kaczmarek said the PORC currently has
powers to reject the
department's handling of complaints and ask the City Council to conduct
its own investigation,
complete with subpoena power.
"In almost 10 years that has never had to happen," he said.
Rally
Local clergy, civil rights leaders and members of the New York Civil
Liberties Union held a rally on
the steps of City Hall to tout the review board idea and to ask the
City
Council to take up the
matter at next week's meeting of the Public Safety Committee.
Approximately 100 people attended.
Brian Wright, head of the Schenectady County Human Rights Commission,
said people who file
complaints against the Police Department never know the outcome of
their
case. At the end of an
investigation, the complainant receives a two-paragraph note from the
city that merely
acknowledges the complaint was looked into, but it says nothing about
whether the complaint was
founded, Wright said.
Rev. Van Stuart of the Friendship Baptist Church said such a situation
fosters mistrust between
residents and the police.
"If the police are going to review themselves that is going to create a
whole lot of suspicion," said
Stuart, a current member of the PORC.
Kaczmarek questioned the need for a civilian review board.
"They have not used the subpoena power of the City Council, which
they're given by law," he said.
"And the reason is they've never been dissatisfied with our
investigation to think they have to."
But, Kaczmarek said the Police Department is considering the
possibility
of notifying people when
their complaints are found to be true.
To do that and maintain confidentiality of police personnel files would
require limiting the number of
places complaints can be filed, Kaczmarek said.
Complaints can currently be filed at the Police Department, City Hall,
the Human Rights
Commission and through the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People.
Kaczmarek said NAACP officials are currently keeping records of the
complaints they've received,
a factor that could compromise officer confidentiality once if
complainants learn the outcomes of
their cases.
"They're essentially keeping personnel files," he said.
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Police-review backers hold vigil at City Hall
-- More than 100 people turned out Monday at a
candlelight vigil on the steps of City Hall urging the
City
Council to form an independent civilian police review
board.
"The issues are impartiality and seeking credible
information regarding complaints against officers,'' said
Howard Sheffey, a retired 25-year New York City
police sergeant and a member of the existing Police
Objective Review Committee.
About a dozen people, mainly members of the
rally-sponsoring Capital Region Chapter of the New
York Civil Liberties Union, NAACP, county Human
Rights Commission and the Committee for Social
Justice, spoke during the peaceful, one-hour event.
Members of the groups have long complained that the
existing review committee is not equipped to provide
effective oversight.
Last June, the groups submitted a proposal to the City
Council for a new Citizens Police Review Board with
subpoena powers.
Louise Roback, director of the Civil Liberties chapter,
said that under the current system the police investigate
the police.
"It's time for the City Council to call a public hearing
on
the issue. People need an impartial board,'' Roback said.
The rally comes as a federal grand jury investigates
corruption in the Police Department. In August, two
police officers were indicted on drug distribution and
extortion charges. However, Roback said there is no
sign that the grand jury is looking into brutality
charges.
Police Chief Gregory Kaczmarek, who was present at
the rally, said the existing review committee has the
option of turning over cases to the City Council if there
is
dissatisfaction with the police internal investigation. He
said the council has subpoena powers, but he noted that
the committee has never referred a case to the council.
"We are willing to make some changes with the existing
program to facilitate some of their ideas,'' Kaczmarek
said.
Brian Wright, Human Rights Commission executive
director, said he was concerned because police internal
investigations over the years found problems with only
three of 180 complaints.
The Rev. Van Stuart said some people with complaints
are reluctant to be interviewed by the police, but they
would speak to a civilian board.
"Justice has to work for the police and for those touched
by the police it must be a two-way street,'' Stuart said.