New York Sign Language New Yorkers Protest Tough Crime Policy Has Gone Too Far By BOB YAMPOLSKY	フレームで見る  英文をプリントする  脚注をプリントする
警察官発砲殺人でN.Y.に議論 今年2月4日、N.Y. のブロンクスで私服警官4人が無実のギニア人男性めがけ、41発もの銃弾を発砲して射殺しました。被害者を手配中の犯罪者と誤認したための悲劇でしたが、市民の間では行き過ぎの犯罪取り締まりに対し、抗議ムードが高まっています。

On the night of Feb. 4, four plainclothes policemen were driving down a street in the Bronx, on the lookout for a certain criminal who had carried out a series of attacks on women. When they spotted a person who fitted the description of the criminal — as they later described it — at the entrance to an apartment building, they stopped the car and got out. Drawing their weapons, they ordered the man to freeze.

The man turned around and, as the officers would later describe it, seemed to reach for a gun. Within a matter of seconds, the four policemen fired a total of 41 bullets, 19 of which found their target. The man did not have a gun, it turned out — just a wallet, a pager and his keys. He had gone out to get a snack and was killed as he was about to enter the apartment building where he lived.

The man's name was Amadou Diallo. He was a 22-year-old immigrant from the West African nation of Guinea. He worked as a street vendor. He had no criminal record.

Less than a decade ago, crime rates in New York were at record highs. More than 2,000 people were murdered in one year. The first statistical signs of a drop in crime began in Mayor David Dinkins' last year in office, 1991. And the real precipitous drop started after our current mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, took office in 1992. Under his leadership, the police force in New York has not only grown in size, it has also become much more aggressive. This aggressiveness has been credited with reducing crime to less than half the level of a decade ago.

New Yorkers had grown accustomed to reports about the new police tactics. But this was always in the context of how successful they were. In the months since the Diallo shooting, the reports have all focused on police brutality, and how the police routinely ignore the civil rights of the people they are supposed to protect.

Residents of black and Hispan ic neighborhoods say the police act like an occupying army. They stop and frisk individuals without cause, and are rude, threatening and confrontational. I even read how one school teaches its students how to act when the police stop them — make no sudden movements, don't talk back, hold down your anger — since one false step could lead to a beating or an arrest — or worse.

In the weeks following the shooting, a black activist named Al Sharpton coordinated a well-organized protest. Then Sharpton arranged for daily protests in front of police headquarters in lower Man hattan. As demonstrators marched, chanting and carrying anti-police and anti-Giuliani signs (such as our sign for this month, "GIULIANI IS A RACIST"), volunteers engaged in civil disobedience, blocking the entrance to police headquarters and refusing to move. Police came and arrested them.

At first those arrested were mainly followers of Sharpton. Sharpton is a well-known New York figure who first gained prominence as a demagogue, someone who purposely fans racial tensions for his own political benefit. Hence he has been generally shunned by most mainstream civic leaders. But as the Diallo protests gained momentum, more and more of these mainstream leaders joined forces with him.

It was a strange and well-choreographed affair: Prominent New York citizens practically fell over one another to make appointments with Sharpton so that they could be arrested at a certain time on a certain day. All told, more than 1,000 were arrested in two weeks of protest. They included former Mayor Dinkins, congressmen, clergy, intellectuals and, as the news media reported excitedly, Academy Award winner Susan Sarandon.

Mayor Giuliani initially dismissed the protests as political theater, but as the sense of crisis grew, he began making conciliatory gestures. He has met with several black leaders whom he had previously ignored, and has begun showing an interest in the concerns of the black community. The police department has also announced that it will try to recruit more minority officers, that it will introduce a cultural sensitivity training program and that the plainclothes unit, to which the officers who shot Diallo belonged, will now wear uniforms. Sharpton and others are demanding far wider changes.

The four officers were indicted at the end of March on charges of second degree murder. They say they are innocent — they simply made a mistake, but they did not commit a crime. But 41 bullets is an awful lot of bullets, and autopsy reports suggest that Diallo was shot even after he had fallen to the ground.

The last case of police brutality to receive this much publicity was the Rodney King case, in Los Angeles. King, you may remember, was the motorist whose beating at the hands of four policemen was captured on videotape. Their acquittal, of course, led to three days of rioting that devastated Los Angeles. The officers in the Diallo shooting will go on trial early next year.

Shukan ST: May 28, 2000

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