Message: The Globe and Mail, Wednesday, September 22, 1999 Human-rights group lashes out at 'widespread' police brutality Most U.S. officers accused of abuses go unpunished, Amnesty says By Paul Koring Washington -- Police brutality, especially against members of racial and ethnic minorities, remains "persistent and widespread" across the United States, Amnesty International said yesterday. Some cases -- like that of Amadou Diallo, the unarmed and homeless West African immigrant who died in a fusillade of 41 shots fired by New York police officers -- garner the media spotlight and have prompted President Bill Clinton and others to promise a crackdown. But Amnesty said most police officers accused of abuses go unpunished and many instances of brutality go unreported. As yet another police brutality scandal rocked Los Angeles this week, involving accusations that officers shot and killed a handcuffed suspect while their superiors conspired in a cover-up, the Amnesty report said it was the little-known cases that often reflect unacceptable and illegal patterns of abuse. For instance, Amnesty said that it has documented "at least 70 people" who died after being subjected to so-called pepper spray "during arrest or while in custody." Although Amnesty concedes that there is no evidence directly linking pepper spray, which can cause gagging and choking and temporarily paralyze the larynx, with the deaths, the human-rights group said that the use of the spray was often associated with other forms of brutality. The use of hog-tying, known in police circles as Total Appendage Restraint Procedure, remains widespread although police in New York and Los Angeles have banned it. Along with other abnormal holds, including officers kneeling or standing on suspects' chests, it is linked to many deaths and injuries from "positional asphyxia." Some of the incidents cited by Amnesty are horrific. Lewis Rivera, a homeless man eating in a Miami shopping mall, was chased by half a dozen police officers last May. They sprayed him with pepper spray, kicked him, bound his hands and feet and then dragged him to a police car. He died within the hour in a police cell, the second homeless person to die in Miami police custody this year. In Kansas City last November, a 13-year-old black child was killed when four police officers opened fire after surrounding the pickup truck he was driving. All were cleared of criminal wrongdoing although a civil suit is pending. In February this year, a suicidal Los Angeles man, Ricardo Clos, died after being shot 38 times by Los Angeles police officers who responded to a call from the man's wife, who said he had cut himself in the neck. When police arrived, Mr. Clos threw the knife at them but missed. Amnesty said a disproportionate number of homeless and mentally ill individuals, as well as members of racial and ethnic minorities, are victims of police abuse and brutality ranging from verbal epithets to unwarranted searches to beatings and killings. There is no national reporting system, and police guidelines and oversight vary from state to state and municipality to municipality. The Clinton administration has only recently reacted to minorities' growing anger about their treatment by police. "The issue is national in scope," Attorney-General Janet Reno admitted last April. "For too many people, especially in minority communities, the trust that is so essential to effective policing does not exist because [they] believe that police have used excessive force, that law enforcement is too aggressive, that law enforcement is biased, disrespectful and unfair." Amnesty lauded Washington for vowing to tackle the problem and said that prosecutions against police for brutality, as well as corruption, are on the rise. Last year "the Justice Department is reported to have filed criminal charges against 74 officers for excessive force, . . . a 12-year-high." However, Amnesty said, "this still represents only a small proportion of the thousands of complaints of brutality" levelled each year. Many victims are believed to be too frightened to even file complaints. "Some say police misconduct is an inevitable byproduct of the crackdown on crime," President Clinton said in June. "I don't believe that's so; we don't have to choose between keeping safe and treating people right; . . . we can do both." Central to the problem is the lack of any national requirement that police forces even gather data or report on shootings, injuries and deaths in custody or other uses of force. In Los Angeles, where police brutality and corruption have been a recurring civic theme for decades, Mayor Richard Riordan vowed yesterday to "get to the bottom" of the latest allegations. At the same time, he begged Angelinos "not to let a few evil officers ruin the reputation of the entire force." Copyright 1999 The Globe and Mail Visit the globeandmail.com Web Centre for your competitive edge. - ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
