Five investigations target aggressive New York police tactics

Several recent high-profile cases involving excessive force by police have raised public concern in New York City

July 14, 2000
Web posted at: 8:12 p.m. EDT (0012 GMT)

In this story: 'Take back streets' Safir: 3 incidents out of 400,000 arrests When crime dropped RELATED STORIES, SITES

From Deborah Feyerick
CNN correspondent

NEW YORK -- In the '90s, the New York Police Department astonished many with the success of its aggressive crime-fighting tactics.

But now critics say that New York City police went from being assertive to overly aggressive. Today, New York police officers are the targets of five state and federal investigations into alleged brutality and misconduct -- the dark side, the critics say, of aggressive policing.

They point to the cases of Abner Louima, Amadou Diallo, and Patrick Dorismond.

	MESSAGE BOARD
Policing the police

Louima was tortured inside a police station house by an officer who said he took justice into his own hands. Diallo was an unarmed street vendor killed by police; fearing the wallet in his hand was a gun, they fired 41 times. Dorismond, an unarmed security guard, was fatally shot by an undercover narcotics cop in a botched buy-and-bust operation.

The three tragedies ignited racial tension in parts of the city.

"When I was a child and you got lost, your parents told you to go and find a police officer," says former mayor Richard Dinkins, an African-American. "Today, some children go the other way. They're afraid of police."

"We in New York chose effective law enforcement and disregarded the respect for civil rights and civil liberties," said Norman Siegel of the New Civil Liberties Union. "We chose the former over the latter. That was a colossal error in judgment."

Even the chief architect of the city's tough anti-crime policies says something went wrong.

"You have more police officers in the year 2000 for a problem that is much less," former police commissioner William Bratton said. "It's like giving a cancer patient more radiation and chemotherapy after the tumor has shrunk. It doesn't make sense."

'Take back streets'

But aggressive policing was an important approach in the early '90s, as police tried to combat use of crack-cocaine and other crimes. The city had 8000 open-air drug locations. Murders rose 60 percent in just 5 years to an all-time high, claiming 2,300 lives.

Then Rudy Giuliani, a former prosecutor and staunch police defender, ran for mayor. He promised, above all, to restore order.

"It was a brilliant campaign," said Esther Fuchs, a Columbia University political analyst. "It was about quality of life and he translated quality of life into lower crime rates."

His mandate to his commissioner: "Take back streets that were out of control," Bratton recalls.

The police did. In 10 years, as the force grew from 40,000 to 44,000 officers, crime fell to levels not seen since the 1960's.

Safir: 3 incidents out of 400,000 arrests

But not everyone was happy about the way it was done. Frustrations steadily built, minority leaders say, as thousands of latinos and African-Americans -- most law-abiding, some not-- were stopped and frisked for guns and drugs.

Nearly 90 percent of the stops were illegal, according to the New York attorney general. Last year, more than 5,000 complaints against police were filed.

The complaints show that "there is a serious and substantial problem known as police misconduct, excessive force, abuse of authority, discourtesy, racial, homophobic slurs," Siegel said.

Police officials say the number of complaints has fallen in the last two years. And despite the Louima, Diallo and Dorismond incidents, they say their officers are more restrained than police in any other large American city.

"Those are tragic incidents but you have to put them in context," said Police Commissioner Howard Safir. "We have six million contacts with the public a year. We arrest almost 400,000 people a year. And you're talking about three incidents."

When crime dropped

But those three incidents show New York's approach to crime-fighting should have shifted when crime dropped, says Bratton.

Police could have avoided alienating minorities and could have even improved police effectiveness by working with communities rather than against them.

"If the police in 1997 had been pulled back from the assertive policing, the community-based policing could have reduced crime and disorder and improved race relations," Bratton said. "Instead we have the situations we find ourselves in now."

"Police have tremendous power," said another former commissioner, Raymond Kelly. "They are the constitution at two o'clock in the morning. They are the government. So I think you have to be careful as to how you supervise police activity."

The mayor and the current police commissioner stand by their get-tough approach, warning that anything less could bring back rampant crime.

"It doesn't mean we're perfect," Safir said. "It doesn't mean there haven't been these horrific incidents and it doesn't mean that we can't improve. But when you look at the overall record of this police department, it's something that is envied by the rest of the world."

Ex-NYPD officer sentenced in Louima attack
June 27, 2000
Friend of NYPD shooting victim sues city
March 21, 2000
2 NYPD officers indicted for September assault of woman
March 1, 2000
Sources: Four NYPD officers indicted in Diallo shooting
March 25, 1999

New York City Police Department Web Site
The Police Complaint Center
United States Commission on Civil Rights
NYCLU: New York Civil Liberties Union Front Page

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.