US-CRIME: Police Torture Allegations Shock New York

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

NEW YORK, Aug 14 1997 (IPS) - New York’s large Haitian community has been enraged over an incident involving a Haitian man allegedly beaten and tortured by Brooklyn police after a scuffle outside a nightclub.

“There is a history of previous police mistreatment (of Haitians), but it has never been so severe, so rude and so ruthless,” said Henry Frank, executive director of the Haitian Centres Council, of the alleged police assault on Abner Louima.

One police officer, Justin Volpe, was arrested Wednesday after doctors determined that Louima, who works as a security guard and car dealer in Brooklyn, had suffered internal injuries consistent with assault by a blunt instrument.

The medical reports supported Louima’s allegations that, after he was arrested and placed in custody in Brooklyn’s 70th precinct last Saturday, an officer he later identified as Volpe pushed a bathroom plunger up his anus. Then shoved the same plunger was shoved into Louima’s mouth.

He also accused other officers of beating him repeatedly, hurling racial insults and refusing to intercede during Volpe’s alleged assault. Louima said from his bed at Coney Island Hospital that one officer told him, “You niggers have to learn to behave for police officers.”

In a statement to reporters, Marshall Trager, lawyer for the police officers involved in the incident, denied any wrongdoing by the lawmen and expressed confidence that an investigation would vindicate them.

The nature of the charges, however, shocked a community familiar with stories about police brutality. “This is torture – something we would never believe could happen in this country,” Frank said.

Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has ordered an immediate investigation, and Volpe was charged with torture and sodomy one day after Louima made his charges public on Tuesday. Another officer, Thomas Bruder, has been implicated in the alleged assault, and several other officers and two sergeants are being questioned for their role in the weekend incident.

“The alleged conduct involved is reprehensible, done by anyone at any time,” Giuliani said after meeting Louima at his hospital bed. “(When) allegedly done by police officers, it’s even more reprehensible.”

“Obviously, these charges are so serious that we hope the city does a thorough and complete investigation,” said Bill O’Neill, a consultant for the National Committee on Haitian Rights. Many community leaders in New York believe the current incident is just the latest example of a police force that they claim has behaved brutally with impunity for a long time.

“Many New York officers are racist, and they use members of our community for target practise,” Frank argued. “They think they can get away with it, because of the language barrier.” (Most Haitians speak Creole and French, rather than English, as their primary languages.)

Louima, who emigrated from the La Boule suburb of Port-au- Prince in 1990, speaks halting English, Frank noted. He said that factor may have led police to believe that “they were not going to be reported” after they arrested him late Friday night for involvement in an altercation outside the popular ‘Rendez-Vous Palace,’ a Brooklyn nightclub.

Giuliani ordered the charges dropped against Louima, who denied taking part in any fight.

This is not the first assault case against Haitians to hit the headlines, or the first complaint about the behaviour of the 70th precinct. Last year, 64 complaints of abuse against civilians were filed against the precinct – comprising a mostly white police force that patrols the heavily Caribbean-populated neighbourhood of Flatbush. Officers Volpe and Bruder both have been cited for abuses, but subsequent investigations by the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) failed to prove the allegations against them.

One former officer in the precinct, speaking on condition of anonymity, described relations between the police and the Caribbean community bluntly: “They don’t like us, and we don’t like them.”

According to a 1996 report on the New York Police Department by Amnesty International, African Americans have particularly suffered from police brutality. The human rights group found more than 90 cases in which New York police may have used excessive force over the past 15 years, and added that “the large majority of victims of police abuses are racial minorities, particularly African Americans and people of Latin American or Asian descent.”

In one notorious case in May 1991, a Haitian artist, Grady Alexis, died after he was hit repeatedly by a police officer and another man in front of several witnesses, but the officer was acquitted of wrongdoing after he claimed that he acted in self- defence.

“In the past, Haitians have not been heard properly, and police have not taken action,” Frank said. “That is not going to happen again.” Already, Haiti’s U.N. ambassador, Pierre Lelong, lodged a protest on Louima’s treatment and expressed concern about the police’s relations with the more than 600,000 Haitians and Haitian-Americans living in New York City. A demonstration by Haitians in front of the 70th precinct headquarters is planned for Saturday.

Others have directly challenged Mayor Giuliani, a longtime supporter of the police who is facing a re-election bid this November. The Rev. Al Sharpton, a black activist and mayoral candidate, argued that Giuliani’s “knee-jerk reaction to defending police makes police less than cautious in acting in an abusive and, in this case, perverted manner.” Giuliani replied that Sharpton’s comments were “unworthy of response.”

Other officials are just as concerned with the mayor’s record. William Schulz, Amnesty International USA’s executive director, noted that, when Giuliani and other top officials were presented with the organisation’s 1996 report on police brutality, they dismissed it as “anecdotal”.

“This incident sadly validates, once again, Amnesty’s call for an independent inquiry into such allegations, particularly where these involve racial minorities,” Schulz said.