E-Accountability OPINION: Mayor Michael Bloomberg has made the police a major player in maintaining school safety in New York City public schools. We cannot support this due to the fact that there is no accountability or oversight of the police, and, sorry folks, but innocent children are being wrongfully accused every day, and suspended without due process and in violation of their civil rights.

As two investigators at the 61st Precinct as well as Mr. Dennis Boyles at the NYC DOE Office of Special Investigations told me and the parents of two 14-year old girls attacked at their school and trying to make a counter-complaint after their attacker filed a complaint against them, "We will not take your counter-complaint because whoever files a complaint first is always right."

Therefore, if kids are not allowed to carry cell-phones to school, the only people who can file complaints are the school administration, and there is nothing an innocent child (or his/her parent) can do about it.

Mayor Bloomberg did not staff the Commission to Combat Police Corruption when he took office, and now the Chairman, Mark F. Pomerantz, is resigning. He was never given subpoena power to obtain necessary information for his investigations. Mayor Rudy Guiliani fought any effort to look at police corruption.

Voters, taxpayers, and parents need to ask "Why?"

The Commission to Combat Police Corruption (CCPC) was created in 1995 as a permanent board to monitor and evaluate the anti-corruption programs, activities, commitment, and efforts of the New York City Police Department. The Commission is completely independent of the NYPD, and is comprised of Commissioners, appointed by the Mayor, who direct a full-time staff, including a number of attorneys.

April 22, 2005
Police Corruption Panel Is Losing Its Chairman
By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM, NY TIMES

LINK

The chairman of the Mayor's Commission to Combat Police Corruption, who told the City Council on Monday that his panel needed subpoena power and that disputes with the Police Department had reduced the commission's effectiveness, said yesterday that he would resign on June 1.

The chairman, Mark F. Pomerantz, a former federal prosecutor and a partner with the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, said he was resigning from the unpaid post because his commission duties required more time than he could spare from his law practice. Mr. Pomerantz, among other clients, represents the American International Group, the insurance giant facing state and federal regulatory investigations into possible financial manipulation.

He said his decision had nothing to do with his testimony before the Council on Monday, noting he had told the mayor's office of his intention to resign roughly a month ago, long before the hearing was scheduled. Mr. Pomerantz, who served as the commission's chairman for 18 months, sent a letter of resignation to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on April 14. His resignation was first reported yesterday in The Daily News.

"I tendered my resignation from the C.C.P.C. because the job of chairing the commission required more time than I had available to do it," he said in an e-mail message. "Doing the job in the right way, in the absence of subpoena power, requires ongoing discussion with the Police Department about the commission's jurisdiction and access to information."

At the hearing on Monday, Mr. Pomerantz told the Council's Public Safety Committee that the commission had sought to review fraudulent claims for police overtime and sexual misconduct and domestic violence by officers, but was stymied by the department's failure to provide information. He said such jurisdictional disputes had been common in his tenure heading the six-member panel, which he said would be more effective if it had subpoena power, something the department has long fought.

He said in a recent interview that the panel also wanted to examine the integrity of the department's crime statistics reporting, procedures that have been broadly criticized by police union leaders. They have contended that police commanders downgrade some crimes to lesser offenses to drive down the reported number of some more serious crimes, like robbery, burglary and grand larceny, which are closely watched. At least half a dozen commanders have been investigated in connection with downgrading crimes in recent years.

Police Department officials have said that the reviews the commission is seeking to conduct do not fall under the panel's mandate; they contend that matters like overtime fraud and falsifying crime statistics do not constitute corruption. The department's chief spokesman, Paul J. Browne, has said that the department has given the panel full access to case files and other information in "every case where misconduct rose to a level meriting a corruption investigation." That, he said, would include misconduct involving crime statistics that rose to the level of what he termed "serious corruption."

The commission was formed in 1995 by Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani after the Mollen Commission raised questions about the department's ability to police itself and recommended an independent panel with subpoena power. Mr. Giuliani fought the City Council's effort to form such a panel and won a lawsuit barring its creation.

The commission has a $500,000 budget and a permanent staff of four lawyers. It audits and studies the department's anticorruption strategies. It has been criticized as ineffectual because it has no power to compel the department to provide information. The six commissioners, all lawyers, are appointed by the mayor and serve without pay. The staff is paid by the city and serves at the pleasure of the mayor.

No successor for Mr. Pomerantz has been named.

Police Whistleblowers
by Jaime Adame, Gotham Gazette, 02 Jun 2004

LINK

Eleven years ago, Detective Investigator Jeff Baird thought the people in power would protect him.

His testimony exposing misconduct within the Internal Affairs Division was a key part of the Mollen Commission. Baird told city officials how officers within his division would create secret files designed to hide evidence that pointed to corruption and misconduct within the department.

"I was only interested in positive change," said Baird, 49. "I didn't think the retaliation would come."

But the retribution that followed would last the rest of his career-and beyond. Baird was shunned by many of his fellow officers and harassed by others. Transfers to different units quickly stalled a once promising career, according to Baird, who also said there was even a warning that his life was in danger.

Baird was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder by his psychologist and applied to receive a special accident disability pension. The police medical board disputed this, however. The case went to court, with city lawyers arguing that Baird only deserved ordinary benefits.

In April, a Manhattan judge sharply criticized the city for denying Baird's claim, calling its arguments "pitiful."

"In short, NYPD subjected [Baird] to an insidious 'death of a thousand cuts' in retaliation for his work on the Mollen Commission, with the Medical Board's refusal to even address the cause of his condition being the last gash. This the court will not condone.," Judge Louis York reportedlysaid in his ruling in favor of Baird. The city is appealing.

Baird's story is not unique, as other officers who have sought to expose misconduct within the police department have similar tales. Through the years there has been much talk about how to make police whistleblowers feel safe when coming forward to talk about misconduct and corruption. In a recent inquiry, however, a whistleblower has yet again come forward with claims of being subject to retribution rather than thanks.

The VIPER Division

Sgt. John Marchisotto, a supervisor in a Staten Island unit of the VIPER division, which is in charge of monitoring all surveillance within public housing, has said he began writing memos and letters to department leaders in January outlining how officers routinely watched movies or slept while on duty. During this time he also charged that a female supervisor sexually harassed him.

In April, it was reported that Internal Affairs was investigating how a recording of a March suicide taken by the VIPER division wound up on a website. Later that month, the City Council held hearings to examine VIPER, and Marchisotto spoke out against the division. He also spoke to television reporters and held a press conference outlining his allegations.

In City Council hearings, a housing supervisor admitted that many officers monitoring surveillance cameras in housing developments have pending criminal or administrative charges. Manhattan borough president C. Virginia Fields called for more stringent controls on the VIPER unit. The police department has since pledged to review its staffing policies.

Meanwhile, Marchisotto faces three departmental charges related to a WABC news report.

In that report, Marchisotto said he had already faced some retribution. Marchisotto said a group of officers angrily came to his home late at night, and that the department, claiming that he was mentally disturbed, has taken away his guns and placed him on restricted duty.

"You report misconduct, serious misconduct, or anything in the police department they will try to make you look like you're crazy. They will try to discredit you as a complainant and they're pretty good at that," Marchisotto told Channel 7. Police say Marchisotto abused his authority as a supervisor and shouldn't have videotaped inside his unit. Several stories have cited anonymous and high-ranking police sources that call Marchisotto a chronic malcontent. But in a May press conference, Marchisotto stood with New York State Assemblyman Keith Wright (D-Manhattan), the chairman of the assembly's sub-committee on public housing. Wright said in a press conference that "on the surface of it" the charges against Marchisotto look "quite bogus."

Also standing by Marchisotto is Lt. Eric Adams, spokesman for 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care.

"The police department did not bring or file any internal charges on any of the men John mentioned," noted Adams. "No charges handed out against them-yet the discipline was taken against the whistleblower."

Marchisotto could not be reached for this story. Police did not respond to a list of faxed questions.

Blue Wall of Silence

"We need to protect whistleblowers as best we can,"said Norman Siegel, a civil rights attorney and former head of the New York Civil Liberties Union. Siegel has offered his services to Marchisotto.

The city has a whistleblower law on the books designed to protect those that expose wrongdoing, but, even if strengthened, such a law will not eliminate retaliation towards whistleblowers, said Siegel. He suggests a unit should be set up within the Public Advocate's office to protect whistleblowers across all city departments (Siegel has run for the Public Advocate).

And 10 years after the Mollen Commission recommended it, Baird would like to see an independent agency with enough power to oversee the police department. The Commission to Combat Police Corruption was created as a result of the Mollen Commission, but that group has been criticized for being irrelevant. It went for more than a year-and-a-half in the Bloomberg administration without any board members.

Efforts to create a powerful agency with oversight authority failed largely due to staunch opposition from then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Occasionally, the police department has sought to take extra steps to protect whistleblowers and make the department more welcome to criticism. In 1998, then-Commissioner Howard Safir talked publicly about creating ways to reward whistleblowers. But Baird no longer trusts the police to police themselves.

"There's never going to be any real reform within the police department because they crush people like myself who come forward," said Baird.

Judge Rebukes N.Y. for Denying Whistleblower Ex-Cop's Claim
Tom Perrotta, New York Law Journal, 04-02-2004

LINK

A Manhattan judge has rebuked New York City for its challenge to the disability benefits of a former police officer who helped uncover corruption and became a pariah within the New York Police Department.

Supreme Court Justice Louis York described the city's arguments as "pitiful." He said it had failed even to consider whether the officer, who was repeatedly harassed for his role in a corruption investigation, deserved a more generous disability package.

The ex-officer, Jeffrey W. Baird, has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. He claims he is eligible for accident disability retirement owing to "an intense campaign of harassment" against him.

The Police Department claims his depressive disorder makes him eligible for ordinary disability benefits, but not the "accident" disability benefits he claims since the cause of his disability was not an accident.

Justice York angrily rejected the city's argument. He wrote that the term "accident" is not specifically defined in the Administrative Code and could, under Court of Appeals precedent, apply to a pattern of harassment.

"These 'accidental' events were not the usual falls or other unanticipated physical injuries, but legally they do not have to be," Justice York wrote in Baird v. Kelly, 101889/03. "If each act of harassment and retribution that petitioner was subjected to can be deemed by respondents to be 'expected' or 'ordinary,' then our police force -- and our society -- are truly in dire straits."

York wrote that Baird "should be lauded for his courage rather than destroyed by the system whose integrity he sought to preserve."

He ordered the Police Department to reconsider its ruling on Baird's benefits, and suggested there is little reason why the officer should be ineligible for the additional benefits.

In Matter of Lichtenstein, 57 NY2d 1010 (1984), the judge said, the Court of Appeals had adopted a common sense definition of accident as something "unexpected" and "out of the ordinary."

A city attorney said the ruling would be appealed.

Baird played an instrumental role in the work of the Mollen Commission, which investigated police corruption in the early 1990s.

As a member of the Internal Affairs Bureau, he revealed to investigators that officers routinely sabotaged inquiries into police corruption and hid evidence of corruption from prosecutors. After the commission finished its work, he was transferred from the bureau to the Department of Investigations.

Baird said his troubles began immediately. Other officers referred to him as a "rat" and harassed him, he said, and he began receiving anonymous, obscene letters at home.

He claimed he was denied promotions, assigned to the worst cases and often given the silent treatment by other officers.

In November 1995, Baird filed a petition under the city's whistleblowing ordinance, alleging that he had been retaliated against for his role in the probe. Justice York said he was unaware of the outcome of a subsequent investigation by the Corporation Counsel's Office, but said various parties to the litigation have said the office found Baird's allegations to be "not wholly unfounded."

Three years later, Baird applied for disability retirement based on his post-traumatic stress disorder, which had been diagnosed by his psychologist. He was hospitalized for a month in 1998 and returned to work on restricted duty.

In 2000, the Police Department's medical board examined Baird and found he suffered from a disability that would prevent him from performing his duties. The medical board recommended that he be retired with ordinary benefits.

To further his case, Baird submitted medical evaluations, letters from his attorney and a letter from Mayor David N. Dinkins, who created the Mollen Commission. The Board of Trustees of the police pension fund remanded his case to the medical board a few times, and the board each time adhered to its initial findings.

York heard Baird's Article 78 proceeding last August. His decision this week said the medical board repeatedly failed to address the cause of Baird's disability.

The board's "adamant refusal to give a reason for its denial of [Baird's] application, readily reminiscent of the treatment from co-workers and superiors suffered by [him], is per se arbitrary and capricious," York wrote.

The judge concluded: "In short, NYPD subjected [Baird] to an insidious 'death of a thousand cuts' in retaliation for his work on the Mollen Commission, with the Medical Board's refusal to even address the cause of his condition being the last gash. This the court will not condone."

Baird, reached at home yesterday, said, "To me, it strengthens my resolve that what I did was the right thing. Also, it restores my faith in the judicial process."

Leonard Koerner, chief of the appeals division at the Corporation Counsel's Office, said in a statement: "A pattern of alleged harassment does not constitute a line-of-duty accident as that term has been defined by the Court of Appeals. The Board of Trustees' determination denying accident disability retirement was entirely in accord with the applicable case law."

Assistant Corporation Counsel Magda Deconinck argued the case for the city. Jeffrey L. Goldberg of Lake Success, N.Y., represented Baird.

Truth in Justice

Police, Prosecutorial and Judicial Misconduct

Wrongfully Convicted
Learning from the mistakes that send innocent people to prison.
Last updated July 2, 2003

Introduction
In 1997 I began compiling a database of wrongfully incarcerated people who have been arrested and/or convicted of a crime and later proven innocent. This database now contains 360 people who were innocent, yet convicted of a crime - many were sentenced to death.

As a physician, I'm interested in improving the quality of my diagnosis and treatment. I strive to manage my patients and their illnesses accurately and effectively. One way I better my effectiveness is to review mistakes and adjust behavior. No one likes to be wrong, but the process of examining a bad outcome makes me a better physician.

When a plane crashes, the FAA investigates; when a patient dies during surgery, the hospital probes; if a patient adversely reacts to a vaccine, the physician is required to report the occurrence to the CDC.

The criminal justice system does not operate this way. Many agencies exist to investigate crimes and prosecute criminals, but no entity exists to investigate the injustice of wrongful conviction. Authorities in the criminal justice system make no effort to collect, organize and review their mistakes.

The typical wrongfully convicted innocent is quietly released, with no ceremony, or apology, or assurance that a similar mistake may be prevented in the future.

This database was created so that some of the errors within the criminal justice system can be remembered, examined and, hopefully, not repeated. I believe this is the largest collection of innocent people falsely convicted of a crime, in the United States and Canada. Cases are included only when there is evidence that the falsely convicted person is innocent, not simply, "not guilty." Establishing innocence can be done with DNA evidence, a solid alibi, finding the actual culprit or even finding the actual "murder victim" alive, just to name a few.

Wrongful Patterns
When the cases are categorized and reviewed, patterns emerge. Analysis shows that wrongful convictions happen because of:

Erroneous Eyewitness Identification
False Confession
False Informant
Official Misconduct
Rigid Thinking

This site contains the database, case summaries, explanations of the errors mentioned above, a look at DNA's implications in the justice system, and links for further study.

This database includes all known cases of the wrongfully convicted. If you are aware of others, please send me an email (click on Contact Dr. Higgins). Include the reference so the information can be verified. A case must be reported in an accessible public document and the person must have been released from custody to be included in this database. Also, if you are aware of any errors in this database, please contact me.

This web site is dedicated to understanding and learning from errors in the criminal justice system. The purpose of the database is to track the ever-growing number of the wrongfully convicted, identify and understand the associated mistakes and hope that, somehow, this information may be used to prevent another error. It will be updated regularly.

-Edmund Higgins, MD

Special Commissions and their Aftermath

LINK

Just as predictable as new, outrageous cases of abuse or the failure to punish or prosecute officers who commit human rights violations are the commissions created to investigate problems of abuse. In 1981, for example, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights published an important report on police abuse, titled Who is Guarding the Guardians?54 The commission held hearings, subpoenaed documents, and worked with experts in preparing its study. The report contains dozens of recommendations dealing with recruitment of new police officers, internal review of misconduct allegations, external review of abuse complaints, and compilation and dissemination of nationwide data regarding police abuse.

Seventeen years later, most of the recommendations made by the commission remain unrealized. All of the police departments examined by Human Rights Watch had flawed complaint systems and provided inadequate information to the public about how to file a complaint. Multilingual complaint forms, status notification to complainants, and proper maintenance and use of data relating to those complaints are still lacking. The Civil Rights Commission had recommended adequate internal affairs systems, meaningful external review mechanisms, and effective early warning systems for officers with repeated abuse complaints. None of the cities we examined has all of these mechanisms in place. The commission had noted, as well, that one major barrier to federal prosecution of police officers who commit human rights violations is the "specific intent" standard: prosecutors must prove that an officer specifically intended to deprive an individual of a constitutional right in order to win brutality cases. Yet in the seventeen years since the commission's report, neither Congress nor the Executive Branch of the federal government has actively pursued a revision of the statute.

Since the Civil Rights Commission report in 1981, a handful of comprehensive studies on police misconduct in particular cities have been published: in Los Angeles (Christopher Commission), Boston (St. Clair Commission), and New York (Mollen Commission).55 Investigators have held hearings, reviewed relevant police files, and produced piercing critiques of the police departments' shortcomings. In Boston, the scope of the report was limited, and many of the recommended reforms were long overdue and have been implemented. In New York and Los Angeles,implementation is still underway, with mixed results. In general, reports from special commissions or human rights groups receive serious attention initially, but that attention fades until new incidents remind citizens that reforms were not implemented as promised.

All of the commissions' studies revealed disturbing common threads. In addition to racial components and seriously flawed internal affairs units, described more fully below, the commissions emphasized that police departments tolerate abuse. The Mollen Commission stated: "As important as the possible extent of brutality, is the extent of brutality tolerance we found throughout the Department....(O)fficers seem fairly tolerant - both outwardly and inwardly - of occasional police brutality."56 The commission went on: "This tolerance, or willful blindness, extends to supervisors as well....[W]hen cops come to the stationhouse with a visibly beaten suspect...[supervisors] often do not question the story they hear."57

Serious failures on the part of high-ranking police officials were also noted. The Christopher Commission report found, for example: "The failure to control these (repeatedly abusive) officers is a management issue that is at the heart of the problem. The documents and data that we have analyzed have all been available to the department; indeed, most of this information came from that source. The LAPD's failure to analyze and act upon these revealing data evidences a significant breakdown in the management and leadership of the Department."58 Similarly, the St. Clair Commission found "substantial problems in the leadership and management of the (Boston) Department...."59 Hubert Williams, the president of the Police Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based research group, stated: "Most police chiefs are honest and have integrity, but they fail due to an ignorance of what is occurringin their own departments."60 Williams noted a "disconnect between policies and practices" within police departments.61

The Mollen Commission also described the important link between corruption and brutality, with brutality against citizens serving as a sort of "rite of passage" toward corruption. Some officers told the commission that brutality was how they first "crossed the line toward abandoning their integrity," and when the line was crossed without consequences, it was easier to abuse their authority in other ways.62 According to the commission, "....we found that cops did not simply become corrupt; they sometimes became corrupt and violent."63 In some cities, newer officers - who are most likely to be "tested" by corrupt fellow officers - are assigned to poor and minority neighborhoods. The victims in these brutality "rites of passage" would most commonly be minorities.

See where the cops go on Pay Day...
Mollen Commission Says
Cops Can't Police Themselves
by Paul DeRienzo

LINK

Every twenty years or so the New York City police department undergoes the public humiliation of a corruption investigation. The recent hearings presided over by retired judge Milton Mollen exposed police officers rife with corruption both petty and gross. These findings were in line with past corruption investigations except this time the illegal drug trade was added to the pot.
The Mollen Commission's main recommendation was for the creation of a permanent outside watchdog body with the power to oversee NYPD's own Internal Affairs Division and launch its own independent investigations. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and police commissioner William Bratton are opposed to the Mollen plan and Bratton says he can clean up corruption among the NYPD's 30,000 officers without giving up any authority to outsiders.

But any effort to clean up the force from within has to face the resistance of the force to change. One form of resistance to change among officers is the so-called blue wall of silence where officers refuse to testify against others about corruption. The Mollen commission investigators managed to overcome the reluctance to testify by treating cops as any other drug dealers, offering them deals in their sentencing. The Mollen commission also relied on a few honest cops who came forward to reveal corruption often concealed by their superiors. These honest cops often found themselves pariahs in the department facing threats and possible death.

Attorney William Kunstler, who among others successfully defended accused cop shooter Larry Davis, is now representing one officer whose come under attack for cooperating with the Mollen commission. Detective Jeff Baird is an IAD investigator who exposed how police commanders covered up corruption cases. Because of his cooperation Baird says he's been punished by the department and gotten death threats from his colleagues.

"They told him he was going to be put out on the street for every raid," says Kunstler, "And someone else threatened that they would reveal his identity (to drug dealers) and get him killed." Kunstler says Baird was denied a promised promotion, transferred to another city agency and is forbidden from speaking to the press. Kunstler's partner, Ron Kuby says Baird's career has been "effectively ended" adding that "this is the way the Police Department rewards an honest man."

Baird won the enmity of the NYPD because of testimony stemming from his intimate knowledge of IAD record keeping. Testifying before the Mollen commission as "Mr. G" -- Baird helped reveal the secret filing system used to conceal sensitive investigations from the District Attorney, the media and the public. When the Mollen commission first asked for all IAD files it was unaware of something called the "Tickler File" that was withheld from the public. It was a tip from IAD officers that revealed the existence of the files.

In its final report the Mollen commission wrote that "approximately 40 corruption cases over the past five years have never been recorded in official records or sent to prosecutors". The report went on: "many of the Tickler File corruption cases were quite serious in nature, ranging from sale and use of narcotics, protecting drug dealers, accepting payoffs from organized-crime figures, to perjury and leaking confidential information." Mollen conditions investigators say IAD was more interested in preserving the departments public image than digging up corruption.

In one case a group of officers from the 9th Precinct on the Lower East Side of Manhattan used a drug dealers storefront as an on-duty clubhouse. According to the storeowner, testifying before the Mollen hearings as "Mr. X", more than a dozen cops spent their days taking cocaine, drinking and carousing with local dealers. Mr. X testified that he informed investigators that the group of officers hanging out in his store got together with local dealers to plan a fourth of July party at one of the officers Staten Island home. The party was billed as a "BYOD", slang for a "bring your own drugs." According to Mr. X, the officer hosting the planned shindig bought an ounce of cocaine for the affair. Meanwhile Mr. X had been busted for drugs and was secretly working with investigators. He testified informing IAD of the Staten Island coke party and a raid was planned. But according to Mollen commission members the local police commanders were opposed and leaked plans for the raid and the party and a chance to bust dozens of dirty cops and their drug connections was missed.

One of the most troubling aspects to the Mollen commission hearing was the connection between corruption, police brutality and racism. One cop, Bernard Cawley, testified he was groomed by precinct commanders as a head-knocker and soon became known throughout the South Bronx as the "mechanic" because as a thug he would "tune people up." Cawley was asked if he "beat up people you arrested? "No." he said, "We just beat people up in general. If they're on the street, hanging around drug locations. It was a show of force." Cawley told the commission he and other cops had no interest in stopping drugs. They protected high level dealers for pay, robbed others, and sold drugs they confiscated back on the streets.

The stories harken back to the late 1960's when the Black Panthers confronted heroin dealers on the streets of Harlem. It was the general belief at the time was that the heroin flooding into the inner cities was an assault on Black youth newly awakened to political action by the black power movement.

Dhoruba bin Wahad was a young activist who led a band of Black radicals who raided Harlem drug dens with ties to corrupt cops and dumped the confiscated drugs down sewers in front of the community. Dhoruba was also a member of the New York City chapter of the Black Panther Party and one of the Panther 21 activists who were acquitted of political crimes in the early 1970's.

One of Dhoruba's anti-drug raids was foiled by cops who were protecting the Harlem heroin dealers and a gun used in the raid was falsely connected to the shooting of two cops. After doing 19 years in prison, Dhoruba was released, because the District Attorney had concealed evidence that would have freed him. The fight isn't over and Dhoruba is still fighting the possibility of a re-imprisonment by a vindictive DA.

In another case of police corruption a conservative, middle aged military veteran demanded Lower East Side community board three tell the ninth police precinct to remove the brass plaques on the precinct house honoring two cops allegedly killed in the line of duty more than twenty years ago. According to the resident the two cops, officers Gregory Foster and Rocco Laurie, were themselves notorious drug dealers. According to sources they were killed by Lower East Side drug dealers who were fed up with having to pay bribes to the officers. Not surprisingly the community board took no action.

Racism by police is often cited as a motivating factor along with greed for police corruption. In August a Black undercover transit cop, Desmond Robinson was shot four times in the back by police officer Peter Del-Debbio. Del-Debbio reportedly thought Robinson was a shotgun-toting teenager the cops were supposedly hunting down in the subway. Despite a visit to Robinson's hospital bedside by Mayor Giuliani Black cops saw the incident as another symbol of racism.

Phil Caruso, head of the Police Benevolent Association, told a news conference that the "perception" among the public and police officers was that Blacks commit most crimes. Caruso went on to say that shootings of Black undercover cops by white cops would probably occur again. Since 1940 more than twenty Black cops have been shot by white cops while not one white cop has ever been shot by a Black officer. The Mollen commission recommendations are currently under consideration by Giuliani and City Council speaker Peter Vallone.

NYC Council Whistleblower Protection Law

Police Assessment Resource Center

Shielded From Justice: Police Brutality and Accountability in the United States
LINK
OVERVIEW

Police abuse remains one of the most serious and divisive human rights violations in the United States. The excessive use of force by police officers, including unjustified shootings, severe beatings, fatal chokings, and rough treatment, persists because overwhelming barriers to accountability make it possible for officers who commit human rights violations to escape due punishment and often to repeat their offenses.1 Police or public officials greet each new report of brutality with denials or explain that the act was an aberration, while the administrative and criminal systems that should deter these abuses by holding officers accountable instead virtually guarantee them impunity.

This report examines common obstacles to accountability for police abuse in fourteen large cities representing most regions of the nation. The cities examined are: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, Portland, Providence, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. Research for this report was conducted over two and a half years, from late 1995 through early 1998.

The brutality cases examined, which are set out in detail in chapters on each city, are similar to cases that continue to emerge in headlines and in survivors' complaints. It is important to note, however, that because it is difficult to obtain case information except where there is public scandal and/or prosecution, this reportrelies heavily on cases that have reached public attention; disciplinary action and criminal prosecution are even less common than the cases set out below would suggest.

Our investigation found that police brutality is persistent in all of these cities; that systems to deal with abuse have had similar failings in all the cities; and that, in each city examined, complainants face enormous barriers in seeking administrative punishment or criminal prosecution of officers who have committed human rights violations. Despite claims to the contrary from city officials where abuses have become scandals in the media, efforts to make meaningful reforms have fallen short.

The barriers to accountability are remarkably similar from city to city. Shortcomings in recruitment, training, and management are common to all. So is the fact that officers who repeatedly commit human rights violations tend to be a small minority who taint entire police departments but are protected, routinely, by the silence of their fellow officers and by flawed systems of reporting, oversight, and accountability. Another pervasive shortcoming is the scarcity of meaningful information about trends in abuse; data are also lacking regarding the police departments' response to those incidents and their plans or actions to prevent brutality. Where data do exist, there is no evidence that police administrators or, where relevant, prosecutors, utilize available information in a way to deter abuse.2 Another commonality in recent years is a recognition, in most cities, about what needs to be done to fix troubled departments. However, this encouraging development is coupled with an official unwillingness to deal seriously with officers who commit abuses until high-profile cases expose long-standing negligence or tolerance of brutality.

One recent, positive development has been the federal "pattern or practice" civil investigations, and subsequent agreements, initiated by the U.S. Justice Department.3 In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Steubenville, Ohio, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division has examined shortcomings in accountability for misconduct in those cities' police departments; the cities agreed to implement reforms to end violative practices rather than risk the Justice Department taking a case to court for injunctive action. The reforms proposed by the Justice Department were similar to those long advocated by community activists and civil rights groups, and included better use-of-force training and policies, stronger reporting mechanisms, creation of early warning systems to identify current, and potential, officers at risk of engaging in abuse, and improved disciplinary procedures. The Justice Department does not usually make its investigative choices public, but several other police departments, including those in Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York, and Philadelphia, are reportedly under investigation by the Civil Rights Division.

Police abuse experts, and some police officials, refer to "problem" officers, by which they mean officers who either have significant records of abuse or significant records of complaints from the public, and who thus should receive special monitoring, training and counseling to counter the heightened risk that they will be involved in some future incident of misconduct or brutality. In this report, we will use this terminology where police officials and experts use it, to denote officers who, on account of their record of either sustained or unsustained complaints, appear to present a higher than normal risk of committing human rights violations.

Allegations of police abuse are rife in cities throughout the country and take many forms. This report uses specific incidents as illustrations of the obstacles to deterring, investigating and acting upon perceived abuses. Human Rights Watch is presenting these cases not to accuse any particular officer of an abuse, but rather to describe the barriers that exist to addressing such allegations meaningfully. Any alleged abuse has a corrosive effect on public trust of the police force, and it is imperative that the system be reformed to prevent human rights violations such as those described below.

A seriously flawed background check of a new recruit who had a history of abusive behavior while working for another police department, apparent misuse of pepper spray, and poor investigation procedures were evident in the Aaron Williams case. (See San Francisco chapter for additional details.) Williams died while in the custody of San Francisco police officers after officers subdued him and sprayed him with pepper spray in the Western Edition neighborhood in June 1995. Williams, a burglary suspect, was bound with wrist and ankle cuffs,and according to witnesses was hit and kicked after he was restrained.4 Departmental rules apparently were broken when the officers used pepper spray repeatedly on Williams, who appeared to be high on drugs, and officers did not monitor his breathing as required.5 One of the officers involved in the incident, Marc Andaya, had reportedly been the subject of as many as thirty-five complaints while working with the Oakland police force before being hired by the San Francisco Police Department.6 In Oakland, his supervisor reportedly had urged desk duty for Andaya because of his "cowboy" behavior.7 It is not clear why the San Francisco Police Department hired Andaya in light of his background, but the press reported that Andaya may have given only a partial account of his complaint history and no thorough check was conducted.8 Andaya was accused of neglect of duty and using excessive force, but the city's Police Commission initially deadlocked on the charges (two for, two against, with one police commissioner absent), which was in effect an exoneration. In large part due to community outrage over the Williams case, Andaya was eventually fired for lying about his disciplinary background in his application.9

A record of brutality complaints, inadequate supervision, and the code of silence were illustrated in the Anthony Baez case in New York City. (See New York City chapter for additional details.) Baez, age twenty-nine, was choked to death during an encounter with police Officer Francis X. Livoti on December 22, 1994. Livoti had been the subject of at least eleven brutality complaints over an eleven-year period, including one that was substantiated by the city's civilian review board involving the choking of a sixteen-year-old who was allegedly riding a go-cart recklessly.10 In the Baez case, Livoti was acquitted of criminally negligent homicide in a judge-only trial ending in October 1996. But in finding the prosecution's case unproven, the judge nevertheless criticized conflicting and inconsistent officer testimony, citing a "nest of perjury" within the department.11 Livoti was then prosecuted administratively to ascertain, in part, whether he had broken departmental rules that prohibit applying a chokehold.12 Partially in response to substantial publicity and community outrage over Livoti's behavior, he was fired in February 1997 for breaking departmental rules.

The case of Frank Schmidt in Philadelphia illustrated flawed investigative procedures and lax discipline. (See Philadelphia chapter for additional details.) Officer Christopher Rudy was on duty but reportedly visiting friends and drinking alcohol at a warehouse in November 1993.13 A dispute arose between the warehouse owner and Frank Schmidt, with Schmidt accused of stealing items from the warehouse. Schmidt reportedly told investigators that the warehouse gates were locked behind him, a gun was put to his head, and he was beaten as Officer Rudy watched and poured beer over Schmidt's head. Throughout the ordeal, the warehouse owner reportedly threatened to cut off Schmidt's hands with a knife and to have warehouse workers rape him. Schmidt reported the incident to the police, but Rudy was not questioned for seven months and then denied everything. Rudy reportedly received a twelve-day suspension for failing to take police action and for conduct unbecoming a police officer; he was returned to active duty .14

Lax oversight and the failure to act quickly to dismiss an abusive officer while he was still on probation were evident in Minneapolis. (See Minneapolis chapter for additional details.) Officer Michael Ray Parent was convicted in state court of kidnaping and raping a woman in his squad car and was sentenced to four years in prison in April 1995. In the early morning hours of August 5, 1994, Officer Parent stopped and questioned the woman. She acknowledged she had been drinking, and he put her in the back seat of his squad car and told her she was under arrest for driving under the influence of alcohol. He then forced her to have oral sex with him. After the incident was reported, investigators found several prior complaints about Parent involving inappropriate sexual conduct while on duty, even though he had been on the force for only a year and a half before the August 1994 incident; he had been accused of a sexual incident during his probationary period on the force, when dismissals are much easier.15

Despite a civil jury trial leading to one of Indianapolis's largest awards following a judgment against an officer who fatally shot a burglary suspect, the officer remains on the force. (See Indianapolis chapter for additional details.) Officer Wayne Sharp, who is white, shot and killed Edmund Powell, who was black, in June 1991.16 Sharp, a veteran officer, claimed the shooting was accidental and that Powell had swung a nail-studded board at him, yet according to at least one witness, Powell was on the ground and had apparently surrendered when he was shot.17 According to witnesses, Powell allegedly stolesomething from a department store, and Sharp chased him into an alley with his gun drawn. The Marion County prosecutor brought the case before a grand jury, and it declined to indict Sharp on any criminal charges. Community activists claimed that the shooting was racially motivated; Sharp had killed a black burglary suspect ten years earlier and a grand jury had declined to indict him. At that time, Sharp reportedly was removed from street duty because of his "flirtation" with the National Socialist White People's Party, a neo-Nazi group.18 Powell's grandmother, Gertrude Jackson, alleging Sharp intentionally shot Powell, filed a civil lawsuit in 1992; the jury found in favor of Jackson and awarded $465,000 to Powell's family.19 The city had not paid Jackson as of September 1997, and the status of any appeal was unclear.20 Despite his history, Sharp was still on duty as of mid-1997 and according to the police chief there has received "high accolades and several awards for superior work."21

A ranking New Orleans officer who himself was responsible for enforcing internal rules had a long history of abuse complaints, some sustained, but was only dismissed after he was convicted of a crime. (See New Orleans chapter for additional details.) Lieutenant Christopher Maurice was the subject of more than a dozen discourtesy and brutality complaints before being charged and convicted on two counts of simple battery in November 1995 (and fired two weeks later). The charges stemmed from a June 1994 incident in which Lt. Maurice allegedly slammed the head of radio personality Richard Blake (knownas Robert Sandifer) against the police car's hood.22 Just after this encounter, Maurice was found in violation of department rules for getting into an argument and nearly a fistfight with a fellow officer during ethics training in early 1994. Also in June 1994, Maurice was served a warrant for another battery charge in St. Tammany Parish. Prior to the 1994 incidents, he had been suspended once (allegedly for brandishing his gun at a neighbor) and reprimanded twice since 1985, according to his civil service records. In a 1991 civil suit, the city paid a $25,000 settlement to a man who claimed that Maurice had hit him in the head with his police radio. Despite this record, Maurice was the commander in charge of enforcing the internal rules of the department. The city's citizen review agency (an external monitoring office) reportedly investigated several of the complaints against Maurice but did not uphold any of them as valid.

Human Rights Watch recognizes that police officers, like other people, will make mistakes when they are under pressure to make split-second decisions regarding the use of force. Even the best recruiting, training, and command oversight will not result in flawless behavior on the part of all officers. Furthermore, we recognize that policing in the United States is a dangerous job. During 1996, 116 officers died while on duty nationwide (from all causes - shootings, assaults, accidents, and natural causes).23 Yet, precisely because police officers can make mistakes, or allow personal bias or emotion to enter into policing - and because they are allowed, as a last resort, to use potentially lethal force to subdue individuals they apprehend - police must be subjected to intense scrutiny.24

The abuses described in this report are preventable. Officers with long records of abuse, policies that are overly vague, training that is substandard, and screening that is inadequate all create opportunities for abuse. Perhaps most important, and consistently lacking, is a system of oversight in which supervisors hold their charges accountable for mistreatment and are themselves reviewed and evaluated, in part, by how they deal with subordinate officers who commit human rights violations. Those who claim that each high-profile case of abuse by a "rogue" officer is an aberration are missing the point: problem officers frequently persist because the accountability systems are so seriously flawed.

Police, state, and federal authorities are responsible for holding police officers accountable for abusive or arbitrary acts.25 Police officials must ensure that police officers are punished when they violate administrative rules, while state and federal prosecutors must prosecute criminal acts committed by officers, and where appropriate, complicity by their superior officers.26 Each of these entities apply different standards when reviewing officer responsibility for an alleged abuse.27 All of these authorities have an obligation to ensure that the conduct of police officersmeets international standards that prohibit human rights violations and that, in general, the U.S. complies with the obligations imposed by those treaties to which it is a party. While only the federal government is responsible for reporting internationally on U.S. compliance with the relevant treaties, local and state officials share responsibility for ensuring compliance within their jurisdictions.28

Summary
Public Accountability and Transparency
Investigation and Discipline
Obstacles to Justice

Recommendations

Obstacles to Justice
Investigation and Discipline
Public Accountability and Transparency

Police brutality is one of the most serious, enduring, and divisive human rights violations in the United States. The problem is nationwide, and its nature is institutionalized. For these reasons, the U.S. government - as well as state and city governments, which have an obligation to respect the international human rights standards by which the United States is bound - deserve to be held accountable by international human rights bodies and international public opinion.

Police officers engage in unjustified shootings, severe beatings, fatal chokings, and unnecessarily rough physical treatment in cities throughout the United States, while their police superiors, city officials, and the Justice Department fail to act decisively to restrain or penalize such acts or even to record the full magnitude of the problem. Habitually brutal officers - usually a small percentage of officers on a force - may be the subject of repeated complaints but are usually protected by their fellow officers and by the shoddiness of internal police investigations. A victim seeking redress faces obstacles at every point in the process, ranging from overt intimidation to the reluctance of local and federal prosecutors to take on brutality cases. Severe abuses persist because overwhelming barriers to accountability make it all too likely that officers who commit human rights violations escape due punishment to continue their abusive conduct.

This report is based on research conducted in fourteen U.S. cities over two and a half years. Rather than focusing on one city and its police department's problem with abuse, as most studies of police abuse have done, we examined large cities representing most regions of the nation to find common obstacles to accountability. The cities examined are: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, Portland, Providence, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. In researching this report, Human Rights Watch interviewed and corresponded with attorneys representing victims alleging ill-treatment by police, representatives of police department internal affairs units, police officers, citizen review agency staff, city officials, Justice Department officials, representatives of federal U.S. attorneys' offices, local prosecutors' office representatives, experts on police abuse, and victims of abuse.

Human Rights Watch recognizes that police officers, like all human beings, are fallible, and that the situations they confront are often dangerous and require quick decisions. But, as described in this report, the cost of pervasive police abuse is monumental - in the tens of millions of dollars in damages that cities pay every year in response to victims' civil lawsuits; in police criminality and the corruption of ideals of public service; in the ensuing public mistrust that - particularly in communities of racial minorities - creates a rift between the police and the public.

Race continues to play a central role in police brutality in the United States. Indeed, despite gains in many areas since the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, one area that has been stubbornly resistant to change has been the treatment afforded racial minorities by police. In the cities we have examined where such data are available, minorities have alleged human rights violations by police more frequently than white residents and far out of proportion to their representation in those cities. Police have subjected minorities to apparently discriminatory treatment and have physically abused minorities while using racial epithets. Each new incident involving police mistreatment of an African-American, Hispanic-American or other minority - and particularly those that receive media attention - reinforces a belief that some residents are subjected to particularly harsh treatment and racial bias.

If the barriers to accountability described in this report were removed, the number and severity of abuses that officers commit would no doubt be greatly reduced. Yet the administrative and legal procedures that should guarantee accountability are seriously flawed and have been extremely resistant to change. In fact, many of the problems we describe in this report have been highlighted in previous studies on police practices: the 1968 Kerner Commission report, the 1981 report of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and several more recent studies on especially troubled city police departments. Nevertheless, most police departments examined by Human Rights Watch continue with "business as usual" until scandals emerge. Those who claim that each high-profile human rights abuse is an aberration, committed by a "rogue" officer, are missing the point: human rights violations persist in large part because the accountability systems are so defective.

Victims of police brutality have many options for reporting abusive treatment by officers but little chance of seeing those officers punished or prosecuted. Citizen review agencies are often overwhelmed and understaffed; reporting an abuse to such an agency may, eventually, lead to an investigation, but it is unlikely to result in the offending officer's being appropriately punished. Filing an abuse complaint with a police department's internal affairs unit can be intimidating, and police departments' excessive secrecy usually means that the complainant learns nothing about any disciplinary action that may have been taken against the accused officer. Filing a civil lawsuit is an option for some victims, but success rates vary widely from city to city, and typically it is the municipality rather than the officer that is held financially responsible. Also, most victims of abuse correctly perceive that criminal prosecution, either locally or federally, is rarely an option - except in highly publicized cases. As a result, resentment and frustration often exacerbate the original abusive treatment. Because it is an open secret that oversight procedures for police abuse do not function effectively, many abuse victims do not even bother to pursue a complaint at all. This series of factors results in violent officers remaining on the job.

In examining human rights violations committed by police officers and barriers to investigation, redress, and prosecution, we found common shortcomings in all of the cities we examined. These failings fall into three basic categories: lack of effective public accountability and transparency, persistent failure to investigate and punish officers who commit human rights violations, and obstacles to justice. We offer recommendations addressed to officials at all levels - departmental, municipal, and federal - and emphasize that reform at all levels and in all three areas is required to secure real change.

© June 1998
Human Rights Watch

Alan Dershowitz Testifies Before The House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, December 1, 1998

NYC Council Passes LOCAL LAW 91 OF 1997 After The Mollen Commission Gives Recommendations

Cyber Essay on Police Corruption

Police Crime

DIRTY WATCHDOGS
By MURRAY WEISS, NY POST

LINK

Thirteen veteran supervisors and detectives from an NYPD watchdog unit that was supposed to prevent corruption and wrongdoing in a major police division have been slapped with misconduct charges, The Post has learned.

A lieutenant, eight sergeants and four detectives who once virtually made up the entire "investigations unit" scrutinizing narcotics, vice, auto crime and firearms cops within the NYPD's Organized Crime Control Bureau are each facing departmental trials.

Improprieties within the monitoring unit surfaced last year after the NYPD was jolted by scandals in the Narcotics Division, where several present and former detectives were arrested for stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from drug dealers.

Last October, one-time partners Detectives Julio Vasquez and Thomas Rachko pleaded guilty to stealing $169,000 in cash from a drug courier who was under surveillance by another OCCB drug unit, the El Dorado Task Force.

Vasquez was on his lunch hour at the time of the heist.

Last April, former narcotics Detective Carlos Rodriguez admitted to conspiring to launder drug money and use it to renovate his Long Island home and was sentenced to two years in prison.

Last Dec. 29, Deputy Inspector Richard Capolongo committed suicide inside a Queens police facility while under investigation by Internal Affairs for working a security job when he was supposed to be on duty.

And last fall, 20 cops were bounced from another inspections unit for failing to properly oversee overtime wrongfully claimed by about 70 Brooklyn South narcotics officers.

Another 25 officers in Manhattan were also suspected of cheating on their time sheets.

When angry top brass were trying to figure out how such blatant wrongdoing could occur, they quickly realized that oversight was not only lax, but that some supervisors were raking in overtime they did not work or cutting other corners during their shifts.

"They were supposed to be watching search warrants, checking on roll calls and watching overtime," one source explained. "But basically they were part of the problem, too."

The 13 supervisors and detectives - many of them former members of Internal Affairs with more than 20 years on the NYPD - were hit with charges ranging from failing to supervise to misusing time to crafting their work schedules around their personal lives. All but one of the accused were dumped from the unit by Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly and replaced with a new and expanded team headed by Harvard-educated Deputy Inspector Kevin Ward.

James Moschella from the law firm Karasyk and Moschella, which represents the lieutenants and detectives unions, insisted his clients never took a nickel they did not earn.

"These are all decent, hardworking men and women who were doing their job appropriately," Moschella said.

Spokesmen for the NYPD and the Sergeants Benevolent Association declined to comment.

Police First Deputy Commissioner