Jim Finnel
Fallen Cannabis Warrior & Ex News Moderator
Three New York City police officers were indicted in early December for the alleged sodomy of a 24-year-old tattoo artist, after the man was arrested for allegedly smoking marijuana outside of a Brooklyn subway station.
Richard Kern, 25, a four-year veteran, is charged with the most serious crime of using a baton to violate Michael Mineo in October. Officers Alex Cruz and Andrew Morales were indicted on the charge that they tried to cover up the sodomy.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, of the National Action Network, was the first civil rights leader to appear at Mr. Mineo’s side—even as the police department’s Internal Affairs Division and the media said there was no sodomy.
Rev. Sharpton told audiences at weekly National Action Network meetings in Harlem headquarter that incoming attorney general in the Barack Obama administration must make investigating police brutality a priority.
“We must go to the attorney general and deal with the issue of police misconduct,” Rev. Sharpton said. Mr. Obama’s choice for attorney general is Eric Holder, a former deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration.
New Yorkers are recalling the 1997 sodomizing of Haitian immigrant, Abner Louima by an NYPD officer with a broomstick. The guilty officer was sentenced to 30 years in prison, a second officer was given a five-year sentence for perjury.
Ron Hampton, president of the Washington-based National Black Police Association, told The Final Call that agrees with Rev. Sharpton’s call for the attorney general to prioritize stopping police misconduct. “If it’s Eric Holder, he has a monumental job of cleaning up a U.S. Justice Department, so that it can get back to being what a Justice Department is suppose to be,” Mr. Hampton said.
Rev. Sharpton, speaking to a Chicago audience Dec. 16, again called for federal action against abusive cops. “There’s still a problem with criminal justice in this country. The authorities must enforce the laws that they abide by,” Rev. Sharpton said.
“Police misconduct complaints are up across the U.S.,” Mr. Hampton noted. “And we are seeing more and more that there is a management issue at the local level.” Mr. Hampton, in discussing the latest NYC cop abuse case, said the Internal Affairs Division set the tone when it found was no crime committed in Mr. Mineo’s case. Then a transit officer stepped forward to tell the grand jury he witnessed the alleged sodomy.
“People who are in charge of the NYPD don’t want to address the systemic issue of police brutality and racial profiling,” Mr. Hampton said. A culture exists where as the police feel they can do what they can get away with, he said. “They say, ‘nothing is going to happen to me,’ “ said Mr. Hampton.
It is up to police department leaders and managers to set standards that don’t tolerate misconduct, he argued.
Back in September analysts with the N.Y. Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) warned that the NYPD seemed headed towards a record number of stop and frisks of people, particularly people of color. The rights organization said in the first quarter of 2008, 145,098 stops had been made—the highest quarterly rate since the NYPD started keeping data on the controversial procedure. Through September, some 391,000 people had been arbitrarily stopped and searched.
The NYPD stopped 508,540 people in 2007 up from 97,296 in 2002, when the recording of the data began. In 2006 the number had dropped to 468,932. The NYCLU said 86.4 percent of the people stopped were Black and Latino, while Whites constituted 2.6 percent of those stopped.
The NYCLU has reported on the racial disparity in NYPD subway stops, saying that 90 percent of those stopped were Blacks and Latinos, who are just 49 percent of subway riders. The rights group said the highest numbers of stops were in White neighborhoods, such as Wall St. and midtown Manhattan.
“Race is the reason people are stopped,” said a NYULU spokesman, in a written statement. Legal experts critical of the stop and frisk and subway questioning process aren’t convinced the city is any safer.
“We are not anti-police. We must work with the police department to set a positive climate with law enforcement,” Rev. Sharpton told a National Action Network audience. “But we must have appropriate and proper policing.”
“The system must be cleaned up from the inside. The officers don’t fear the internal system of discipline,” explained Anthony Miranda, president of the National Latino Police Officers Association, to The Final Call.
“Police officers must be made to understand that the decisions they make impact on the lives of others; and that police officers have a serious responsibility towards the communities that they serve,” stated Mr. Miranda.
Citizens must become proactive by demanding accountability through making the Internal Affairs Department effective, he added.
“We also must work with officers to defeat the mentality that it is ‘them versus the community,’ that they must segregate themselves from the community and only seek camaraderie with fellow officers,” Mr. Miranda stressed.
Rev. Sharpton has vowed to pack the courthouse when the officers go to trial in the Michael Mineo sodomy case. “The reason I know we can win for Mineo, is because we won for Louima,” Rev. Sharpton said.
News Hawk: User: 420 MAGAZINE ® - Medical Marijuana Publication & Social Networking
Source: FinalCall.com
Author: Saeed Shabazz
Copyright: 2008 FCN Publishing
Contact: Contact Us
Website: Sharpton: Feds need to tackle police misconduct
Richard Kern, 25, a four-year veteran, is charged with the most serious crime of using a baton to violate Michael Mineo in October. Officers Alex Cruz and Andrew Morales were indicted on the charge that they tried to cover up the sodomy.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, of the National Action Network, was the first civil rights leader to appear at Mr. Mineo’s side—even as the police department’s Internal Affairs Division and the media said there was no sodomy.
Rev. Sharpton told audiences at weekly National Action Network meetings in Harlem headquarter that incoming attorney general in the Barack Obama administration must make investigating police brutality a priority.
“We must go to the attorney general and deal with the issue of police misconduct,” Rev. Sharpton said. Mr. Obama’s choice for attorney general is Eric Holder, a former deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration.
New Yorkers are recalling the 1997 sodomizing of Haitian immigrant, Abner Louima by an NYPD officer with a broomstick. The guilty officer was sentenced to 30 years in prison, a second officer was given a five-year sentence for perjury.
Ron Hampton, president of the Washington-based National Black Police Association, told The Final Call that agrees with Rev. Sharpton’s call for the attorney general to prioritize stopping police misconduct. “If it’s Eric Holder, he has a monumental job of cleaning up a U.S. Justice Department, so that it can get back to being what a Justice Department is suppose to be,” Mr. Hampton said.
Rev. Sharpton, speaking to a Chicago audience Dec. 16, again called for federal action against abusive cops. “There’s still a problem with criminal justice in this country. The authorities must enforce the laws that they abide by,” Rev. Sharpton said.
“Police misconduct complaints are up across the U.S.,” Mr. Hampton noted. “And we are seeing more and more that there is a management issue at the local level.” Mr. Hampton, in discussing the latest NYC cop abuse case, said the Internal Affairs Division set the tone when it found was no crime committed in Mr. Mineo’s case. Then a transit officer stepped forward to tell the grand jury he witnessed the alleged sodomy.
“People who are in charge of the NYPD don’t want to address the systemic issue of police brutality and racial profiling,” Mr. Hampton said. A culture exists where as the police feel they can do what they can get away with, he said. “They say, ‘nothing is going to happen to me,’ “ said Mr. Hampton.
It is up to police department leaders and managers to set standards that don’t tolerate misconduct, he argued.
Back in September analysts with the N.Y. Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) warned that the NYPD seemed headed towards a record number of stop and frisks of people, particularly people of color. The rights organization said in the first quarter of 2008, 145,098 stops had been made—the highest quarterly rate since the NYPD started keeping data on the controversial procedure. Through September, some 391,000 people had been arbitrarily stopped and searched.
The NYPD stopped 508,540 people in 2007 up from 97,296 in 2002, when the recording of the data began. In 2006 the number had dropped to 468,932. The NYCLU said 86.4 percent of the people stopped were Black and Latino, while Whites constituted 2.6 percent of those stopped.
The NYCLU has reported on the racial disparity in NYPD subway stops, saying that 90 percent of those stopped were Blacks and Latinos, who are just 49 percent of subway riders. The rights group said the highest numbers of stops were in White neighborhoods, such as Wall St. and midtown Manhattan.
“Race is the reason people are stopped,” said a NYULU spokesman, in a written statement. Legal experts critical of the stop and frisk and subway questioning process aren’t convinced the city is any safer.
“We are not anti-police. We must work with the police department to set a positive climate with law enforcement,” Rev. Sharpton told a National Action Network audience. “But we must have appropriate and proper policing.”
“The system must be cleaned up from the inside. The officers don’t fear the internal system of discipline,” explained Anthony Miranda, president of the National Latino Police Officers Association, to The Final Call.
“Police officers must be made to understand that the decisions they make impact on the lives of others; and that police officers have a serious responsibility towards the communities that they serve,” stated Mr. Miranda.
Citizens must become proactive by demanding accountability through making the Internal Affairs Department effective, he added.
“We also must work with officers to defeat the mentality that it is ‘them versus the community,’ that they must segregate themselves from the community and only seek camaraderie with fellow officers,” Mr. Miranda stressed.
Rev. Sharpton has vowed to pack the courthouse when the officers go to trial in the Michael Mineo sodomy case. “The reason I know we can win for Mineo, is because we won for Louima,” Rev. Sharpton said.
News Hawk: User: 420 MAGAZINE ® - Medical Marijuana Publication & Social Networking
Source: FinalCall.com
Author: Saeed Shabazz
Copyright: 2008 FCN Publishing
Contact: Contact Us
Website: Sharpton: Feds need to tackle police misconduct
