| News Report RACISM IN NY'S SCHOOLS ALLEGED
School
Safety
History of
Police Brutality
Case
Studies of Police Brutality
Giuliani's Ton Ton
Macoutes
Resources:
Center for Constitutional Rights (800) 764-0235
National Coalition on Police Accountability (312) 663-5392
National Congress for Puerto Rican Rights 212 614-5355 rperez@boricuanet.org
National Peoples Campaign - 39 West 14th Street, #206, NY, NY
10011. (212) 633-6646; (Fax) (212) 633-2889
Speak Out! - POB 99096, Emeryville, CA 94662 Phone: (510)
601-0182; Fax: (510) 601-0183; speakout@igc.apc.org
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I: How frequent has this trend of police
brutality been during the current, Guiliani administration?
AI: What we've found is that the rise in the number of complaints has continued very
strongly in the Guiliani administration. Guiliani likes to play with figures. He likes to
suggest that complaints of brutality have gone down. What has gone down is the percentage
of the rise in brutality and complaints. In other words, for the last ten years, brutality
reports have been going up 30-40%. In 1995 it went up only 16%. In 1996 it went up 0%. The
thing to keep in mind is that it leveled off at record highs In other words, complaints
against the police are as rampant as they've ever been. I should say that while we feel
that the Guiliani administration has played virtually no role in trying to stop brutality,
in fact Guiliani appears to have gone out of his way to provide comfort to brutalizers,
certainly no other administration has been effective at halting or reigning in police
brutality. The matter of fact is that politicians often lack the will or lack the power to
police the police themselves. They often say that the police are the best persons to
observe and discipline other police officers. What we have found is that we have
no faith that any city government is going to effectively police its police department or
reign itself in, particularly in the areas of police brutality. That's why we're calling
on state and/or federal action. We prefer federal action because we don't think state has
the will. They certainly will buckle under the powerful police lobby. I: Does
racism play any role in police brutality?
AI: We certainly call the question. When one looks at the findings that we came up with in
our report, one finds that the deaths in custody have been rising every year since 1990.
The number of police shooting have been going up since 1990-1994, then they stopped
quoting those statistics. We find that virtually all of the victims of these findings,
such as deaths in custody, are minorities. After a while, one has to question whether
there is a sufficient amount of respect for the minority community or is it simply okay
for people to be killed while in the custody of a police officer. Certainly no police
officers have been disciplined criminally or other wise, except in some cases. Three cases
of the 90 we looked at only minor disciplines were administered. Three officers lost three
days vacation. Someone lost their life so that they can have three days of vacation taken
away. That's not an even swap. There certainly is an attitude, by the police's own
admission. One officer in the 70th Precinct told a Daily News reporter, "We hate them
and they hate us." There's something wrong when a police department and a police
officer, speaking for the entire department, says "We hate them." They hate the
community they are serving. What sort of attitude are they taking when they leave their
precinct and they take to the streets.
I: A lot of people would comment that it's worse when people of color come into contact
with officers of color .
AI: There's no question. When we talk about brutality, we talk about a culture of
brutality. We talk about a culture that accepts brutality. Of the officers charged, I
believe 69% of them were white. That means that a good percentage of those accused of
misconduct were not white. Minority police officers are in fact committing police
brutality against people in minority neighborhoods. It's clear that this is an accepted
practice. Whether police officers come in and try to adapt to the culture or whether they
come in with a certain resentment towards their own people or whether their just brutal
people, we don't know. One of the points I'd like to make, is that brutality is a
sickness. It takes a separate kind of behavior than is
normal.
Personally, I've always rejected the idea of cultural sensitivity training because, in my
opinion, they really don't work. A racist is a racist. They may change their views in time
but I think they need psychological counseling, they need certain incidents to happen in
their lives to turn them around, and they need some sort of guidance which will show them
that a lot of their hatred is borne out of other problems. A cultural sensitivity class is
not going to accomplish all this.
I: You don't think this is at least a first step?
AI: It's a possible first step, but it's not the answer. Brutalizers need to punished.
They need to be punished in such a way that they know that police officers know that if
they get out of line they're going to be punished. Right now they don't believe that
they'll get punished. They don't believe that anything's going to happen to them. They
feel that by beating others it's a way of getting respect. With minority communities,
that's not going to work.
Many of the beating are state protected. That's what's happening with the NYPD. They
come over and fight you and if you try and fight back, they have the badge and that
"Blue Wall" to protect them. They have automatic protection. You can't win in
that situation. So when they're beating the hell out of somebody, they're not building
respect, they're building resentment and hatred in the community. That's why so many
innocent people in minority communities refuse to cooperate with the police. Yeah, they do
hate them because the police hate them. It's that attitude that is a huge problem.
I: Under the current NY administration, will that change?
AI: No, I don't think this administration is going to effectively do anything. History has
shown. We've had the Knapp Commission, the Mollen Commission make all these suggestions.
Guiliani dismissed all of them as ridiculous. He set up his own commission with his own
appointees to review the problem of brutality in the police department. His own appointee
and friend Kevin Mack, recommended that an independent monitoring committee be set up to
review police brutality . Guiliani dismissed him and the rest of the commission. He
refused to accept it. He's on record with his actions as saying he's not going
to do anything about brutality. If you look carefully in his setting up of the blue ribbon
panel on police community relations, the whole thing is to encourage dialogue, not to
monitor the police. He has basically given the police the license. He basically says that
brutality is one of the realities of policing, though he'll never publicly admit it.
I: So is there validity in the statement that it's "Guiliani Time?"
AI:Oh yeah, there's no question. We all feel it. You feel that there's a certain arrogance
in the NYPD that existed to a lesser degree that it did under Dinkins. The two send
completely different messages. Yes they believe it's Guiliani Time. He was the one calling
Dinkins all kind of racial names at City Hall when they suggested independent monitoring
of the NYPD. The classic case of where racism comes into the NYPD and Guiliani
administration was the Officer Del Devio/Desmond Robinson shooting when Deldevio shoots a
fellow police officer five times in the back. Guiliani went to see Del Devio first to see
if he was okay. Then only goes to see Robinson after public outcry. It doesn't get any
clearer than that. Guiliani has sent the message that "Hey, I'm standing by you
guys." |
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I: You touch on the fact that Guiliani says
that brutality is a fact of police life. Many people would say that police officers have
to use force for the apprehension of violent or potentially violent criminals. I don't
think many people would disagree with this. But how do you decide what is acceptable force
and what is excessive force?
AI: I agree with that and there are some very stringent guidelines for the use of force by
the NYPD. They are so stringent that they go further than is mandated by international
human rights laws. However, when we see brutality cases, the victims are often in custody.
In other words, they are already "handled." They are in hand cuffs. We've had
people get shot while on their backs or in the back of the head. The person in the back of
a police van get's beaten by police radios and batons. Rodney King was hit 70 times in the
head. After a while, he was not fighting anybody. Right now, the bane of the police
department is the video camera. There's some sensational video scenes.
I: How do officers get away with brutalizing victims?
AI: In one instance, a man put down his knife and the police officer still shot him. He
wrote up a report saying that the guy assaulted him. At the Mollen Commission, officers
testified that this is routine practice. Anytime you cross that line, the first thing you
do is clarify with the officers what you're going to say and then you come in and say the
guy assaulted you. Eleanor Bumpers, 84 years old, they said she assaulted twelve police
officers who burst into her house. There is no question that force
is used against violent criminals. However, the other question is why so many of the
victims of police brutality not themselves the subjects of criminal investigation. Many of
the people who were brutalized were people who just simply questioned police tactics or
didn't move fast enough when the police told him to move or even when trying to stop an
officer from committing brutality. The facts that we have come up with indicate that this
is a separate problem. The brutality that is committed is not
committed in the course of apprehension. It is either in the course of one trying to take
control or as an outlet for violent hatred or some sort of psychological problem. We
assume POs have the training to take control of a situation. This is what we ask police to
do. We want protection. When we call police because we want them to take away the
criminals and to restore order to the chaotic situation. If a person is in such a way that
after he apprehends a criminal after a chase, the officer is going to sit there and say
"This guy had the audacity to run away from me. I'm gonna show him." Then he'll
start beating
him on the head fifty time. Well, that's wrong. We can't accept that. We wouldn't accept
it in Indonesia or Tehran, so we shouldn't accept it in NYC. I: What percentage of
complaints actually get processed and have anything done?
AI: Well, I'll tell you right now, the CCRB is dealing with approximately 6,000 complaints
every year. They only get to about 7%, which is about 400. If those, they file about
100-200 complaints about the officers in question. Virtually none of those are acted upon
by the NYPD. There are two separate venues. The first is the criminal, which is when the
state actually brings charges against officers. Officer Livoti is a classic case of what
happens. He killed Anthony Baez. Baez throws a football to a friend. It bounces away from
his friend and hits the police car. The officer jumps out and confronts Baez. Baez ends up
in a choke hold and five police officers are standing around while family members are
screaming to stop. Next thing, Baez is dead. Now, complaints are filed and a criminal
investigation is conducted, they decide to file charges.
The police by the way are saying that Livoti is an outstanding officer, there should be
more officers like him, and that the city needs officers like him. He has fifteen prior
brutality complaints against him. But to police brass, he is a shining example. Guiliani
is very supportive of Livoti and says that once we get all the facts, he will be
vindicated. The coroner comes out with their report saying that Baez was killed with an
illegal choke hold and that it had to be held between one and two minutes.
During the criminal case, none of the officers testified that they saw what happened. Now
he was holding Baez in a choke hold for one or two minutes and everyone was screaming for
him to get off and no other police officer saw anything? The judge says that there is a
nest of perjury but say that he does not have enough to convict Livoti. Then, the Police
conduct their own investigation. The Police decide that Livoti was guilty of using an
illegal choke hold, and he was fired. Now for them to come to that conclusion, the
officers had to have come forward with that information. If they had not, Livoti would
still be on the force. If they did, in fact, come forward during the internal
investigation, that means that they actually lied during the criminal investigation.
Police Commissioner Safir was then asked if he was going to go after the other officers
for perjury. His response was that he was not aware of any perjury in the criminal case
and as far as he was concerned, the case was closed. Guiliani was asked
and he said that he was very satisfied with the decision that was made. So Livoti was
fired, and that's rare. But still, the family of Anthony Baez gets no justice. And the
city is satisfied with that.
I: What can be done about all this brutality?
AI: There have been a lot of things people have been proposing such as getting older
officers, getting monitors for the officers. That's all well and good but that's not going
to stop it. What's going to stop it is if we start enforcing the law. The Law has to be
enforced against the NYPD and when there is cover up we have to find a way to legally
break that cover up. If the city is unwilling to take responsibility someone else has to.
If we have to have the Federal Government monitoring everything, so be it. I think that
the Police Dept., whose salaries are paid by the citizens and they are sworn to protect
the citizens they are
answerable to the people. We give them an enormous amount of power. They are licensed to
carry a gun. They can literally walk up and shoot some one then walk away from it. We give
them a lot of power and should be answerable to the community. So, independent monitoring
and Federal monitoring are options. Finally, the CCRB should be given more power. They
should have subpoena power and should have the power to discipline. It's clear that the
NYPD won't do it. They say
that it will bring morale down? Well, I think that it's already down because there are a
lot of good officers out there, the majority, who have to abide by this "Blue Wall of
Silence."
In the first six months of 1997, the Civilian Complaint Review Board has found credible
evidence of police wrongdoing in more cases than in all of 1996. CCRB fully
investigated more than 1,600 complaints from January thru the end of June--substantiating
281, as opposed to 259 cases referred to the police department for action in all of 1996.
A CCRB spokesman says they've added 30 investigators in an overhaul that kicked off in mid
1996. The CCRB logged 25 calls per day in August as opposed to 10 a day prior to reports
of the alleged police attack on Abner Louima. |
