sidents] hate the police. You'd hate the police too if you lived there."
             What emerged was a picture of how everyday brutality corrupted relations among police officers and city residents. Officer Michael Dowd testified, "Brutality is a form of acceptance. It's the other officers begin to accept you more." In reaction to the Mollen Commission report, then-Police Commissioner William Bratton stated that if officers behaved properly, he would back them absolutely, but if they used unnecessary force, "all bets are off." The police unions continue to oppose stricter disciplinary measures and the commission's call for changes in the police union's response to allegations of corruption and brutality, such as emphasizing integrity, reportedly have not been heeded.
             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. In the CCRB's January - June 1997 report, African-Americans and Latinos filed more than 78 percent of complaints against the police, while 67 percent of the subject officers were white.
             Minority-group activists claimed that the shooting demonstrated racial bias because the white officer assumed the black officer was a criminal.
             In May 1997, a grand jury declined to indict the officers.
             When 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." An officers' protest, sponsored by the police union, involved thousands of officers demonstrating at City Hall, blocking traffic to the Brooklyn Bridge, and shouting racial epithets; current Mayor Rudolph Giuliani participated in the protest.
             Some officers involved in the protest's offensive acts were disciplined, and the police commissioner stated that ...