Stencil found outside Carrboro, NC police department parking lot. Interestingly, this stencil was up for several months before being scrubbed off recently.

No, I’m not actually advocating running over cops, and I don’t think they’re all pigs. They’re human beings doing their jobs. Sometimes I feel safer when police are around, for example directing traffic late at night. My criticism is not with all individual police officers, but a system that enables police misconduct and police brutality. My beef is with police who abuse their power.

The three members of the NYPD who shot and killed Sean Bell in 2006 were acquitted last week. Despite over 50 witnesses who saw the undercover officers shoot Bell 50 times, the judge found them not guilty. Among the many disturbing elements of this case, a few stand out to me:

1) The excessive use of force. Why did one officer reload his gun, shooting Bell over 30 times? Properly trained officers should only need one well-aimed shot to critically injure a suspect.

2) The police were undercover, and approached Bell’s car with a gun. If someone wearing civilian clothes approached you with a gun, wouldn’t you try to get away as quickly as possible?

3) According to an editorial in The New York Times, “undercover officers said that they stayed within the allowed limit of two alcoholic beverages, but they were not tested.” I was unaware that police can drink on the job. Alcohol impairs judgment and diminishes performance, which leads most employers to forbid drinking at work. Why is the police department any different? Perhaps a drink may be helpful during certain undercover operations, but why were no breathalyser tests performed, as they would be on any alleged violent offender found outside a bar?

4) All three officers are still employed by the NYPD and, according to another article, “are all eager to get back to regular police work.” How can New Yorkers be assured that the officers will not behave similarly in the future?

This case bears chilling resemblance to the 1999 shooting death of West African immigrant Amadou Diallou by four members of the NYPD. Police officers shot Diallo 41 times while he stood on his stoop, and were later acquitted of all charges. Shortly after the verdict, two more young unarmed black men were killed by the NYPD: Patrick Dorismond was fatally shot by an undercover narcotics officer, and Malcolm Ferguson was killed by an undercover officer during a drug bust in the Bronx. None of these police officers were ever charged with or found guilty of any crimes.

Then-police commissioner Howard Safir was widely criticized for mismanagement, while then-mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s Street Crime Unit (responsible for most of these incidents of police brutality) was eventually disbanded. Please note that both men developed prostate cancer shortly after this wave of police violence, which curtailed their immediate career advancement. Safir stepped down from his position as commissioner, while Giuliani, in circumstances that would be repeated nearly eight years later, dropped out of the 2000 race for Senate against Hillary Clinton. Interestingly, some members of the Haitian voodoo community claimed responsibility for their illnesses.

The moral of this story? Methinks we need a little voodoo magic back in NY.

I wrote this in 2001 and it’s still relevant. Especially the last line: “no one is expendable.”