NYC POLICE BRUTALITY
Civil rights advocates in the city note, however, that there has been a cost to the new strategy, revealed by steady citizen complaints against more aggressive NYPD officers during the past several years and continuing impunity for many officers who commit human rights violations despite the recent reorganization of both the civilian review board and the police department's internal affairs bureau. In August 1997, after the alleged torture of Haitian immigrant Abner Louima by police officers made national headlines and outraged city residents, the anti-crime record of the mayor and police department was tarnished. In uncharacteristic fashion, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Police Commissioner Howard Safir condemned the officers implicated in the incident as well as those who reportedly did nothing to stop it or report it. In the city's Civilian Complaint Review Board's (CCRB) semiannual report for the first half of 1997, African-Americans and Latinos filed 78 percent of complaints against the police. The police force is 68 percent white. During the independent CCRB's first three-and-a-half years, only 1 percent of all cases disposed of led to the disciplining of a police officer, and out of 18,336 complaints, there have been just on
Commissioner Safir did implement a policy change in December 1996 allowing him to dismiss officers if a police administrative judge finds that they have lied. Officer Michael Dowd testified, "Brutality is a form of acceptance. Officer Frank Bolusi was Officer Gerard Pitti's partner when Pitti encountered Victor Medina and his friends in Brooklyn in February 1992. were reportedly shot at and beaten by police in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn in March 1986. Baez's family reportedly filed a $48 million lawsuit against the city. Officer Livoti was the third officer dismissed after standing trial, although he was acquitted. Police officials claimed Carasquillo faced the officer who shot him and took a "gun stance," but the city's medical examiner found that he was shot in the back. Civil Complaint Review BoardWhen former New York Mayor David Dinkins supported an independent civilian complaint review board in September 1992, police protested violently and engaged in actions, according to a police department report, that were "unruly, mean-spirited and perhaps criminal. There is often a racial or ethnic component to police abuse cases in New York City, with many incidents also fueled by language barriers and miscommunication in the diverse city. Each borough's district attorneys are quite different in their approach to police brutality cases, with some district attorneys much more likely than others to bring a case against an accused police officer, leading to an arbitrary application of the laws block-by-block in the city. NYPD Commissioner Howard Safir has explained the department's inaction in CCRB-substantiated cases by stating that the CCRB investigations are of a low quality. Following the August 1997 Louima incident, there was a sharp increase in the number of citizen complaints filed with the CCRB. " In correspondence with Human Rights Watch, the IAB's chief states that, "in situations where an officer is served court papers for civil litigation involving excessive force, the officer must submit to his or her commanding officer a request for indemnification by the City of New York. The city does not represent about 10 percent of officers named in lawsuits, who face disciplinary proceedings.
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Acceptance Essays
