CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS SPEAK OUT ON RELEASE OF POLICE INVOLVED IN ABNER LOUIMA ASSAULT

By Donna Lamb

he March 13th City Council Meeting was the first held since the Second Circuit Court overturned the convictions of former police officers Charles Schwarz, Thomas Bruder and Thomas Wiese in the 1997 assault on Abner Louima. While shamefully not one white City Council member spoke out about this blatant miscarriage of justice, many Black and Latino elected officials made their objections forcefully known.

Prior to the meeting, Council Members Charles Barron, Bill Perkins, Leroy Comrie and James Davis submitted Resolution 91, denouncing the Court's decision and calling for the appointment of a Special Prosecutor to investigate it. The Resolution also declared that Schwarz, Bruder and Wiese should never again be allowed to serve as police officers.

Councilwoman Helen Foster referred to the Dred-Scott decision of 1857. Dred Scott was an enslaved African who followed his owner to a free state and then sued for his freedom. The Supreme Court declared that Scott was still a slave, that the Constitution specifically excludes Blacks from its rights of citizenship, and that no African has any rights a white man is bound to respect.

Foster was right on target as she said, "On the last day of Black History Month in 2002 the Federal Court of Appeals decided to honor that day by again indicating that a black man has no rights a white man has to respect.

"This is not a people of color issue;" she continued, "this is an issue of human rights. You must understand that if my rights and the rights of people who look like me continue to be disrespected, it will have a trickle down effect and none of us will be safe."

Councilman James Davis, himself a retired police officer, said, "Today I rise in the name of all good police officers, active or retired, those who have put their lives on the line. But in the case of Abner Louima, I join with other members of the Council in calling on my leader Gifford Miller to speak out about the four police officers Volpe, Schwarz, Wiese and Bruder."

He also said that to reinstate Schwarz, Bruder and Wiese to the Police Department "would be a slap in the face of every person who is dedicated to building bridges between the police and the community. These officers participated. Someone held Louima down. Do not bring these three officers back on the force!"

Council Member Barron, the main sponsor of Resolution 91, began by thanking all of those who support the Resolution. He went on to state, "It's not enough just to speak out against this sadistic, barbaric crime; we need more than words, we need more than eloquence, we need results. We must unite as a City Council and get Governor Pataki to assign a Special Prosecutor who can prosecute these officers on criminal charges at the state level, because that does not represent double jeopardy. That should happen immediately."

Barron went on to say, "We all know that Volpe didn't do this alone. This was a conspiracy, and we do not want the Court of Appeals to be used through a technicality." Alluding to the huge discrepancy between how "justice" is usually dispensed to people of color and how it was carried out in this case, Barron stated, "I only hope that when Black and Latino people go to the Court of Appeals, the Court will be as technical as they were here and let us go, too. We want to make sure that technicalities are not used to render an unjust decision."

Councilman Bill Perkins stressed the fact that "We all know that the blue wall of silence is effectively hiding others who participated in this terrible act against Abner Louima. The mayor and the Police Commissioner must dedicate themselves to tearing down the blue wall of silence and finding and punishing the other criminals involved in that rape."

Council Member Jose Serrano added his voice, speaking about the very real fact that there is a "lack of faith that people of color now have and will continue to have in the Criminal Justice System when cases like this, time and time again, turn out this way. As people of color, we want to have faith in our system and believe that justice will be served in all cases. So this is very important, and I ask my colleagues here in the City Council to support this Resolution and send a clear message to the Criminal Justice System that we will not just stand back while these types of things continue."

Councilwoman Yvette Clarke, who has lived her whole life in the community where Abner Louima resided when this atrocity was committed against him, spoke strongly as well. She described the recent court decision as an outrage not only against Louima but against the Caribbean community itself.

"The ruling of the Appellate Court is a very painful chapter in the lives of the Caribbean American community, and indeed in communities all across New York," Clarke stated later. "We are concerned that the reopening of such a deep wound can only create a situation in which the city becomes more polarized. Abner Louima himself, in the wake of his torture, called for unity and for the Police Department to create more sensitivity training and other such things. We certainly support that cause. However, after all is said and done we believe that an injustice has been committed, and that the same system which overturned this decision should now work to have Louima and this community receive the justice that everyone is entitled to."

As Chair of the Fire & Criminal Justice Services Committee, Yvette Clarke will be working closely with her fellow Council Members who support Resolution 91 and continuing to stand up and address this important issue.

Donna Lamb can be contacted at dlamb@gis.net

Read Donna's Last Column