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March 5, 2000 Diallo Case Yields More Nuanced View of PoliceBy GINGER THOMPSON and C. J. CHIVERS
It is reflected in the deeply divided relationship that Jude Mignon, a barber in Brooklyn, has with the police. Mr. Mignon, 32, an owner of the Chocolate City Barber Shop and Cafe in Crown Heights, said that officers from the local precinct regularly stopped in to chat, and that their presence had been good for business. But at night, he said, the police seem more like a rude gang in sweatshirts and jeans. A couple of times while walking home from work, Mr. Mignon said, he has been stopped by plainclothes officers, pushed against a wall and frisked. Striking a pose with his arms outstretched to display his baggy clothes and cascading dreadlocks, Mr. Mignon said: "To look at me, you wouldn't know if I sold drugs or owned a business. But if you are from this community, you would know who I am." He went on: "I don't hate all cops. Some of them are real cool to me. But some have too much power." In the year since the storm of police bullets in the Soundview section of the Bronx, New York has been racked with noisy confusion from protests over police brutality, high-profile warnings against the dangers of an anti-police backlash and the spectacle of a public trial. Yet interviews with nearly 100 people in three boroughs last week show that the public furor over the case masks signs of a complex new consensus. Despite the angry clamor, or maybe because of it, some New Yorkers say they have a fresh sense of the perils of police work. And it appears that the Police Department, besieged by community complaints, has redoubled its efforts to focus on outreach as well as arrests. In nearly 100 interviews a year ago, soon after Mr. Diallo was killed, the mood of the city was darker. New Yorkers of all races said they worried about police aggression, and many residents -- blacks in particular -- expressed their distrust with palpable bitterness. With the acquittal of the four officers on Feb. 25, that distress continues. Conversations were conducted last week in the neighborhoods along the No. 2 subway line, which threads its way though a variety of economic and ethnic neighborhoods, including housing projects in the North Bronx and a youth center in Flatbush, Brooklyn; an atrium cafe on Wall Street and a public park in Harlem; a hangout for black professionals in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, and a leather boutique in the West Village. Those talks showed that there was still deep anxiety across the city over the death of Mr. Diallo and the acquittal of the four officers who fired the fatal barrage. White New Yorkers -- bankers on Wall Street, commuters at Pennsylvania Station and retirees in the West Village -- said they were stunned that the four officers had been acquitted, and they worried aloud about increasing racial tension. Blacks and Latinos in wealthy and working-class neighborhoods vehemently criticized both the acquittals and Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani's unwavering support of the police, saying that those had magnified their anger and deepened their fear. "It's not getting any better," Robert Ali, 48, said while people-watching at the Fulton Street Mall in Brooklyn. "After something bad happens, the healing will start, but then there is another episode. So you have to ask yourself, 'Are things really going to change?' " When pressed, however, to reflect on their own experiences with the police and their overall feelings about the department, rancor for some would give way, allowing a mixture of feelings to surface. Comments from very few people reflected the tone of the Rev. Al Sharpton, who has referred to the police as some kind of occupying force. And very few espoused Mr. Giuliani's staunch defense of the police. Most attitudes fell in a conflicted place between those two poles. After speaking for several minutes about how upset she felt over the Diallo shooting, Kirsten Levingston, a lawyer, concluded that she could come to no conclusion about her feelings toward the police. "I actually do have a complex view of the police," said Ms. Levingston, an African-American and mother with one child, who lives in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. "It's both, 'I feel for you, you have a tough job,' mixed with 'You need to be more respectful and decent to the people you are serving.' " A year ago, shortly after Mr. Diallo had been buried in Guinea, his homeland, The New York Times interviewed an equally broad group of New Yorkers. The aim, then as now, was to learn how people viewed their growing police force as the city neared the end of a renaissance decade marked by plummeting crime rates. Whites who were interviewed then expressed sharp interest in and concern over the way Mr. Diallo died, even though many said they could not imagine something like that ever happening to them. In them, the shooting stirred frustrations over strict, some said rude, enforcement of petty matters like leash and traffic regulations. Faint echoes of those feelings were heard in interviews with whites last week, but many acknowledged that their interest in the case had waned and that the police had returned to being an invisible part of their world. Anthony Pommes said his attitudes about the police had evolved over the last year. Mr. Pommes, a 27-year-old book publicist, said that immediately after Mr. Diallo was killed, he worried that the police were using "horrific force" to fight crime. Now, he says, he has a "more balanced" view of the police. "They have a job to do, and it is a hard job," Mr. Pommes said while waiting at Pennsylvania Station for a train home to Long Island. "Sometimes they do it well, and sometimes they make mistakes." Another Long Islander at the station, Sherry Gellis of Lynbrook, said: "I do not think police do things carelessly. I think they can become unnerved, like most human beings." Blacks and Latinos remain more on edge. A year ago, in the fury over the shooting of Mr. Diallo, many spoke in bitterly hostile tones about the police presence in their communities, with almost no positive reflections. And the acquittal of the four officers dredged up those same deep strains of anger and distrust that linger in minority communities like East Flatbush and the Frederick Douglass Housing Projects on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, where people feel unfairly targeted by crime-fighting strategies that rely on waves of street searches. Stopping to chat in the North Bronx, Sgt. Richard Rodriguez of the Marine Corps Reserve, a Persian Gulf war veteran, said that as a military man, he was ashamed of the behavior of the New York police. "I've been halfway around the world," Sergeant Rodriguez said. "I've lived with police in North Carolina and in California. And the police department here, I'd say 50 percent are foul." As Shikwan Galliego, a security guard, entered the Hoyt Street subway station in Brooklyn, he said more aggressive police tactics had taken too large a toll on communities like his. "I don't think we should have to put up with cops harassing us so that we can have less crime," he said, clutching the hand of his 2-year-old son. "They are supposed to stop criminals, not anybody who's black." But in more than a few of the neighborhoods visited last week, people did not speak of the Police Department as monolithic. What emerged from their experiences with the police was the image of a Jekyll-and-Hyde agency with two distinct personalities. One is embodied by the uniformed beat officer, whose attributes were best described by a group of giggling teenagers outside Clara Barton High School in Crown Heights. Shivering in the chilly breeze, the girls said officers from the nearby precinct station house visited their school and some played basketball with them after classes. Sharisse Hewitt, 17, said she had seen the officers help lost children get home. Eimy Aguilar, 15, said the police had restored security to the apartment building where she lives. "They are there 24-7 trying to get the drugs out," she said. And Jermaina Howard, 16, said that she once approached an officer on the street to ask about becoming a police officer and found him enthusiastic and helpful. The other part of the Police Department, specialized units, are the centerpiece of Commissioner Howard Safir's crime-fighting strategies. In some operations, the department flushes the street with plainclothes officers to sweep out guns and drugs. Others use small plainclothes squads to root out a suspect. The officers who shot Mr. Diallo were part of the Street Crime Unit, and Officer Louis Rivera, who shot and killed another Bronx man last week, was also on special detail. The newest such units, organized under the name Operation Condor, have already made more than 13,500 arrests since they started in mid-January, according to department records. There are no figures on how many people were stopped and frisked to reach such arrest figures. But on the streets, where the units are notorious, most minority residents interviewed last week had been stopped and searched at least once or knew someone who had. K. Lee Johnson, a 28-year-old musician and producer for Big East Entertainment in Harlem, has had an angry encounter with the special units. He recalled a time last November in Queens when three plainclothes officers descended upon him from an unmarked car and frisked him, saying they were looking for guns. "I felt humiliated," Mr. Johnson recalled. "I felt I had no right to walk the streets." While the experience left him shaken, he has also watched his neighborhood become safer and more vibrant because of the police. When asked how he felt about them, he gave an answer that mixed appreciation with disdain. "Crime has cleaned up," he said. "You can walk down the street and feel secure. You know they are on the beat and looking out for your safety." Then, he added: "But in the same manner, you're afraid of cops. You never know what a cop will do when he approaches." Those kinds of conflicted experiences and feelings about the police were expressed by numerous people who live and work along the path of the No. 2 subway. At the southern end of the line, in Flatbush, Derrick Dawson, 31, runs recreational programs for about 200 youths at the neighborhood Y.M.C.A. On Feb. 25, shortly after the four officers were acquitted of murdering Mr. Diallo, Mr. Dawson was expecting the youths to gather for their weekly "teen night." He said he thought seriously about canceling, thinking that tempers could flare. Instead, he decided to let the teenagers come and vent. Crammed into the small auditorium, he said, they were silent at first. But slowly, the trickle of angry questions turned into a flood. He said the teenagers asked how it was possible that the officers could be acquitted on all charges in the Diallo shooting. They wondered what it meant for their own safety. They wondered whether there was anything they could do to protect themselves from the people who are supposed to be protecting them. They wondered whether they could really trust the police. Mr. Dawson said he reminded the angry group about the officers who had become friends, who had helped teenagers stay out of trouble, who play basketball in Y-leagues, who participate in career seminars. "I think more than anything, the reason the kids did not do anything that night was because they have relationships with police officers," said Mr. Dawson, who was born and raised in the neighborhood. "I don't think the kids think all police are bad, they just felt betrayed." As soon as possible, he said, he wants to arrange for officers from the local precinct to visit the center and speak directly to the teenagers there. "You have to understand. We have Latin Kings. We have Crips. We have Bloods. We have all the gangs," he said, "but we tell the kids when you walk through that door leave your colors outside. "We want this to be a safe haven for the kids," he said. "And we want them to keep their positive relationship with the police." To the north along the subway line, near the Atlantic Avenue stop, there is a laid-back crowd of black professionals at Lucian Blue. Wayne Rambharose, the owner, said he opened the restaurant and bar, with soft yellow walls and votive candles, because he wanted to bring a bit of SoHo to the black middle-class neighborhood. Mr. Rambharose, 37, looked the image of cool, wearing glasses with blue-tinted lenses the size of quarters. He has never been hassled by the police, he said. In fact, his relations with officers have been pretty good. But the shooting of Mr. Diallo and the acquittal of the officers shattered his attitude about the police. "There is a really, really unhealthy atmosphere in New York right now," he said. "It's not even a racial thing anymore, with whites against blacks. But there is a divide between police and all the rest of us." He blamed the mayor for much of the atmosphere. "He has never made an effort to embrace blacks," Mr. Rambharose said. "There's never been any extension of an olive branch, and this is a time when that is needed." At the other end of the bar, Emmett Devon Harrell struggled to reconcile his anger over the verdicts with his positive feelings toward the police. He acknowledged that he was a product of the prosperous times of the last several years in New York, times that allow more and more young men to spend $450 on the leather jackets he designs. But, he said, the shooting of Mr. Diallo and the acquittals were like a reality check. "When it really comes down to it, whites still have all the power, and we have none," said Mr. Harrell, who is black, "no matter how successful we may think we are." Still, he found it hard to summon rage against the police. "I believe they all have good intentions," he said. "It's just that some of them let their egos get in the way." At the foot of Manhattan, three young men who work for a Wall Street bank sat and discussed their feelings about the case. Brian McWilliams, 31, who is white, said he had "negative feelings" because he believes that the police are rude and arrogant with white suspects, and racist in their dealings with black suspects. The Diallo shooting, he said, supports that. But not to Dom Romano, his 27-year-old white colleague. He said he thought the police in New York had done well in lowering crime, and he saw the Diallo shooting as an honest mistake. "In that neighborhood, if I was a white cop and I saw a black guy reach in his back pocket, I'd be on edge," he said. "You hate to stereotype, but I can definitely understand why they were afraid." On the Upper West Side, near 72nd Street, Anita L. Halton, a 21-year-old white woman, waited with friends for the start of their jazz dance class. She said she was almost oblivious to the police. "I actually feel very ignored by the police," she said with a shrug. "It's almost an invisible force to me." But the police presence at the north end of the No. 2 line has changed the landscape, in ways good and bad. Parks are not littered with syringes, and mothers say they are less afraid to let their children play outside. Cavan E. Sherland, 32, a barber in the Williamsbridge section of the Bronx, said he got regular courtesy visits from the police in the neighborhood and was reassured by their presence. But he does not recognize the officers who have stopped him for questions after he locks up at night. And what is worse, he said, the officers do not know him. When asked how he
feels about the police, he shrugged and said, "You have
good cops, and you have bad cops." |
one
of the facts have changed in the year since Amadou Diallo died
in his doorway: four white police officers, 41 bullets and one
unarmed black man. But in neighborhoods from one end of the city
to the other, away from the daily protests over the slain man
and the political posturing, New Yorkers' attitudes about the
police have begun a subtle shift. 
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