RIGHTS-US: Jury Verdicts Boost Case for Police Accountability

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

NEW YORK, Jun 9 1999 (IPS) - The grisly month-long trial of five New York police officers on torture charges against an Haitian immigrant has ended with a mixed verdict – but one which paved the way for a wider crackdown on police brutality.

A Brooklyn jury ended one chapter in the 1997 torture of Abner Louima Tuesday when it found police officer Charles Schwarz guilty of violating Louima’s civil rights, just two weeks after officer Justin Volpe pleaded guilty to torturing Louima.

Schwarz, the jury decided, had helped to hold the Haitian security guard down while Volpe shoved a stick up his rectum in a Brooklyn police precinct on Aug. 9, 1997. The incident occurred after the officers had mistakenly arrested Louima for involvement in a nightclub brawl.

The same jury – comprised of eight whites, three Latinos and an African American – also acquitted Sgt. Michael Bellomo and officers Thomas Bruder and Thomas Wiese on other charges of beating Louima and falsifying records about his arrest.

The mixed verdict allowed prosecutors and some human rights officials to claim victory in the effort to breach the “blue wall of silence” in which police officers often refuse to testify against each other.

But it disappointed others, including Louima himself.

“While I am disappointed the verdict was not everything I wanted it to be, I am confident that complete justice will be done in my case,” Louima said in a press conference Tuesday shortly after the jury ended 18 hours of deliberations with its verdict.

Still, Zachary Carter, the chief federal prosecutor in the trial, argued that “It was absolutely a win…This is a tremendous victory.”

Volpe and Schwarz, who until the guilty verdicts were still serving as members of the New York Police Department (NYPD), now faced the possibility of life in prison, although Judge Eugene Nickerson had discretion to ease their sentences.

Volpe is expected to spend a minimum of 22 years in prison for admitting that he sodomised Louima.

More importantly, the trial – which pitted a black Haitian immigrant against four white police officers – drew more attention than ever to allegations of police brutality, and helped prompt some officers to speak out against their colleagues.

Although the “blue wall of silence” held for nearly two years after Louima was found with a ruptured spleen after his arrest, four police officers last month testified against Volpe – laying waste to his attorney’s bizarre claim that Louima’s injuries were the result of consensual sex.

That testimony prompted Volpe to concede his guilt two weeks ago, an admission which hurt Schwarz’s case given that Louima had indicated that the two officers were the ones that participated in his torture.

Bruder and Wiese, who were accused of beating Louima in a police car, faced different charges and Carter conceded that the jury did not believe the case against them had been proven “beyond reasonable doubt.”

Bellomo was acquitted of several charges of falsifying records in the arrests of Louima and another Haitian man.

“I am not certain that the blue wall of silence would have come down if the act had not been so outrageous,” said Jocelyn McCalla, executive director of the National Coalition for Haitian Rights.

Yet because of the brutality of the attack, he said, police officers took the rare step of trying to argue that “we are not like Justin Volpe” – a development which shook the officers’ case.

The repercussions of the admissions of police brutality could be dramatic, according to legal sources.. The NYPD has never encountered so many officers testifying against a colleague in such a racially-charged case, nor has it been the subject of so much graphic testimony as in recent weeks.

McCalla argued that the trial had helped prove “the consistent, constant harrassment of people who are ‘not like us’ by the police.”

Recent high-profile cases involving police excesses included the February killing of a Guinean street peddler, Amadou Diallo, by four white police officers in the Bronx. The trial of the four officers in that case has yet to begin but lawyers already are trying to seek a mistrial, arguing that the Louima trial’s negative publicity was having an impact on the Diallo case.

Nor are the major cases – many involving white police and black victims – limited to New York.

In April, outrage over allegations that New Jersey state troopers were disproportionately stopping and seaching cars with black or Latino drivers – a practice called “racial profiling” – prompted state officials to concede instances where profiling had occurred.

Several top officials have been replaced, with the scandal showing little sign of receding.

Racial profiling allegations have also dogged police in Florida and California. The latter state has had to contend with repeated pushes to reform police, particularly after the 1992 acquittal of four Los Angeles police officers in the beating of black motorist Rodney King sparked rioting in which 58 people died.

(The officers were later convicted of federal civil rights charges – just as Volpe and Schwarz were convicted of violating Louima’s civil rights.)

Even the Louima case is not entirely over. The Haitian immigrant is suing the City of New York, the NYPD, the officers and their union, the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, for 155 million dollars.

Also, Bruder, Wiese and Schwarz still have to face one more trial, on charges that they conspired to hide the evidence of Louima’s torture.

Barry Scheck, an attorney for Louima, said that trial would be the “blue wall” trial, in which the issue of police impunity and self-protection would be brought to centre stage.