Support the NYPD

Coulter, Ann

Gee, wouldn't you love to be a cop, right now? Every single day you risk your life protecting and defending people you don't even know. And sometimes they hate you for it.

When you avert a crime, catch a criminal, or take enemy fire, the New York Times doesn't run endless panegyrics venerating you. But if you ever make a mistake--even an honest mistake, a reasonable mistake, a mistake anyone could have made, not to be confused with a Bill Clinton "personal mistake" like committing perjury-your name may become a household word akin to "Hitler," and your life will be ruined.

In a case now being treated as a classic illustration of the evils of "racial profiling" (at least by police experts such as Al Sharpton) over four dozen black and Hispanic women told the police they had been raped by a black man. Consequently, the police thought they should look for 'a black man--no doubt as a result of their ignorant stereotyping.

Though the rapes began back in the david Dinkins administration, it wasn't until 1997 that the police connected many of the rapes through DNA tests. At the end of 1998, when sketches of the rapist failed to produce any results, Mayor Giuliani announced a $10,000 reward for the rapist's apprehension.

The Cops Cared

The rapist was not only prolific, but vicious. He often beat and robbed his victimsblack and Hispanic women between the ages of 13 and 53. He typically raped them at gunpoint, and raped one woman in front of her young daughter.

You might not have heard about those 51 victims of barbaric rapes in predominantly black areas of New York City. There were no angry protests. No marches on Fifth Avenue. No sensational specials on "Rivera Uve" for two weeks straight. Al Sharpton wasn't demanding that the federal government intervene to bring this monster to justice. And there were no celebrity acts of civil disobedience raging for weeks on end.

Ineed, the serial rapist might have contin ued his savagery unmolested for another six years for all the self-appointed neighborhood spokesmen cared,

But the cops cared, because that's their job. So in February 1999, four white cops were looking for the rapist in the 43rd Precinct, where a number of the rapes had occurred. Their wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters were not in any danger from this particular rapist, since they didn't live in the predominantly black areas that this rapist had chosen for his hunting grounds. The cops were, it later turned out, less than a mile from where the actual rapist lived.

As everyone in the universe now knows, the four cops patrolling the 43rd Precinct tried to stop a man whom they said was acting suspiciously and whom they believed might be the rapist. In a series of tragic misunderstandings, an innocent man, Amadou Diallo, ended up dead.

According the to policemen's testimonybelieved by a jury that included four black women-Diallo didn't stop after the cops identified themselves and asked him to stop. He turned away from them and then pulled out what they thought was a gun. One of the cops shouted "gun!" and began to shoot. The policeman closest to Diallo fell backwards off a step, leading his partners to believe he had been shot by Dialo.

The reason everyone knows what happened that night in February, is that the New York Times alone has run over 700 articles on it.

Two months later, in April 1999, the police finally apprehended the rapist who had been terrorizing poor minority neighborhoods for six years. They caught him trying to sell jewelry he had stolen from one of his victims to a pawnbroker in the Bronx. A search of his car and home turned up yet more jewelry from the victims-as well as a cache of fire power, including 9-millimeter MAC 11, a.380 semiautomatic pistol, and a .22-caliber rifle.

Like Diallo, the real rapist was a black man, living in a black neighborhood, who also had ajob. He was a floor polisher for a midtown Manhattan building maintenance company You might not know that, since the New York Times ran only one lonely article on the rapist's capture.

One article on the police's apprehension of the real rapist in April: Over 700 articles on the cops' miserable mistake that night in February.

But the policemen who mistook Diallo for an armed rapist aren't just facing a bad press problem. They are also guaranteed several years of horrifying legal proceedings in which they will be forced to defend themselves from repeated accusations that they murdered Diallo. All because of a mistake that took four seconds of their lives-a reasonable mistake according to the jury-while on a dangerous, thankless mission to protect the lives and bodily integrity of people regardless of their color.

The cops have already been tried for murder-not mere involuntary manslaughter, but intentional murder. Alas, it seems the first murder prosecution was not duly rigged for the cop-haters. Consequently, community activists like Al Sharpton have gone to the U.S. Department of Justice to demand a second criminal prosecution by the federal government.

Though the Constitution prohibits "any person" from being 'twice put in jeopardy of life or limb" for the same offence-commonly known as double jeopardy-the Supreme Court has read that clause to be essentially meaningless. Since the state and federal governments are different sovereigns, both can prosecute a suspect separately for the "same offense" without violating the constitutional prohibition on successive prosecutions.

Reno's Innocent Mistake

Still the law finds such judicial do-overs unseemly As Supreme Court Justice John McLean said in 1847, "Nothing can be more repugnant than two punishments for the same act." (Fox v. Ohio, 5 How. 410)

The Department of Justice has fairly stringent restrictions on when a successive federal prosecution can be brought for "the same acts or transactions" already handled in state court. The Justice Department must grant a "Petite waiver," which requires a finding that the case involves "a substantial federal interest," that the state prosecution left that interest "unvindicated," and that the case is strong enough to win a conviction.

Fewer than 100 such separate federal prosecutions for the same conduct are brought every year in the entire country.

Despite the cop-haters' insistence that their threat to throw a collective tantrum has created just such a "federal interest," there is no more federal interest here than in any murder trial. Even if we assume a generalized federal interest in prosecuting murder cases, this one was prosecuted, and fairly, so no such interest could be said to have gone "unvindicated." The Bronx DA who prosecuted the cops could not exactly be accused of throwing the case: He not only indicted the cops for murder, but compared Diallo's shooting to a "drive-by shooting."

Finally, one (racially diverse) jury has already concluded that these cops made a mistake, and were not acting intentionally. A second prosecution, which would necessarily also have to establish that it wasn't a mistake, can hardly be described as a "strong" case.

On the off-chance that anyone cares about the law, the federal government would be bringing suit under Section 242 of the Federal Criminal Code for "Deprivation of rights under color of law." That requires proving that the cops willfully deprived Amadou Diallo of his constitutional rights because of his color or race. Federal prosecutors would not only have to disprove that the cops made a mistake-something the state prosecutors could not do--but also prove that the cops shot Diallo because of his race.

The government will have to argue that the cops intentionally violated Diallo's constitutional rights either by: 1) intentionally depriving Diallo of his Due Process rights under the 5th Amendment; or 2) intentionally depriving Diallo of his right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures under the 4th Amendment.

The first theory would require the government to prove that these cops went out and intentionally killed a black man because of his race (the Manson Family on the NYPD theory). The alternative argument would require the government to prove that the firing of 41 bullets was unreasonable and excessive (the Hollywood conception of firearms theory).

Does that sound familiar? It should. A duly constituted jury already considered both those theories and quite properly rejected them. And just by the way, the black forelady said the jury had concluded that race was not a factor in the shooting. Not exactly grounds for maintaining that there is a substantial likelihood of conviction the second time around.

So the Department of Justice guidelines militate rather clearly against a second federal prosecution, and for the record, I'm inclined to doubt there will be one. But how would you like to have your life and liberty dependent on the Reno Justice Department's following its own policies? (Atty. Gen. Janet Reno is, of course, a woman of honor and integrity: When she ordered the attack on Waco, that was an innocent mistake.)

And those aren't the only legal proceedings the cops have to worry about. Immediately after the shooting itself, a battery of high-profile lawyers began campaigning for the right to sue the cops and the city civilly on behalf of Amadou's grieving mother-whose anguish would apparently be lessened by several million dollars. (But Paula Jones was in it for the money.)

CNBC's Loaded Question

The first dream team angling for the right to sue the cops consisted of Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr., Barry Scheck and Peter J. Neufeld. While these guys frequently materialize when someone is accused of murder-it's usually on behalf of the accused. Indeed, amid the wrangling between Amadou's mother and father for rights to the probable million-dollar payoff, various other chichi lawyers have stepped in for a shot to sue the police, too.

The only criminal defendants in the world who can expect to have this sort of legal talent arrayed against them are white cops.

Technically, a wrongful-death suit against the city and the cops shouldn't be worth very much. Liability is based on pain and suffering, future earnings, and financial loss to one's family. Diallo was single, had no children, was a street vendor, and died fairly quickly. That would typically be worth several hundred thousand dollars, if that. Most lawyers are estimating that the city will settle for millions of dollars.

In the wake of the jury's verdict acquitting the cops, television news programs grilled the jurors after introductions along these lines from CNBC's "Upfront Tonight": "Seven of the 12 jurors agreed to tell us how they reached their sweeping verdict, even though the officers admitted firing 41 shots at an unarmed man." (Emphasis added.) The interviewer, Rehema Ellis, asked the jurors such fairminded questions as, "Can you sleep comfortably' at night?" (In unison, the jurors said, "Yes.")

For Ins denunciations of the police in the Diallo case, Tme magazine crowned Al Sharpton "the voice of black outrage" in an article tided, "Big Al's Finest Hour." While the article chided Sharpton for refusing to apologize to Steven Pagones, the white former prosecutor Sharpton falsely accused of kidnapping and raping Tawana Brawley (and for which Sharpton was ordered to pay $65,000 in a defamation suit last year), the article modestly concluded: "Sharpton has the makings of a moral leader."

Yes, it's a good time to be a cop. A lynch mob calls for your head for that 4-second mistake, you are tried for murder by a prosecutor comparing you to a gang member, and after finally being acquitted, the President of the United States immediately calls for an investigation into the same incident

Did you catch that? It seems Clinton has finally found something he wants the Justice Department to investigate. Long before the jury had rendered its verdict, the

President's lovely wife, Hillary, called the shooting a "murder." By contrast, she welcomed a campaign contribution from Sean (Puffy) Combs-Wa "Puff Daddy," the rap music "entrepreneur," as the New York Times calls him, who is currently facing various felony firearms and bribery charges. Hillary's spokesman said she had no intention of returning Mr. Puff's contribution, because "We believe in the presumption of innocence."

Just not for white cops.

Not only the President and First Lady but also both Democratic candidates for President stated outright that the white cops shot Diallo because of his race. That's a difficult accusation to maintain in light of the fact that cops in Washington, D.C.-where the police force is heavily black-shoot civilians at five times the per capita rate of the New York City Police Department.

By contrast, in the '70s, the number of civilians killed by police in New York averaged 63 a year, according to Clyde Haberman, a reporter for the New York Times. Last year, only 11 were killed, one of whom happened to be Amadou Diallo.

By contrast, In the last two years 119 cops have been killed nationally in the line of duty.

Copyright Human Events Publishing, Inc. Mar 17, 2000
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved