[Which reminds me – the following two items are from today’s NY Times.]
Pressed on Shooting, Giuliani Steps Up Criticism of Unarmed Man
By Eric Lipton
Pressed to respond to charges that he is demonizing the victim, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani yesterday intensified his criticism of Patrick Dorismond, the unarmed man killed on Thursday by an undercover police officer, suggesting that his "pattern of behavior" and his actions the night of the shooting had contributed to his death.
The mayor also confirmed that he had authorized the release of Mr. Dorismond's arrest record immediately after the shooting, citing the public's "right to know."
"People do act in conformity very often with their prior behavior," Mr. Giuliani said yesterday during a television interview on "Fox News Sunday." The news media "would not want a picture presented of an altar boy, when in fact, maybe it isn't an altar boy, it's some other situation that may justify, more closely, what the police officer did."
[snip]
"If you read the man's background -- arrested for robbery, arrested for attempted robbery, arrested for assaulting someone in a driving dispute, arrested for assaulting someone in a marijuana dispute, with calls to his home for other disputes -- it is a pretty bad record," Mr. Giuliani said yesterday in a news conference after appearing at the St. Patrick's Day Parade in Buffalo.
Mr. Giuliani said it was not that relevant that Mr. Dorismond's only convictions in the public record were for two disorderly conduct charges, given that "usually it is a plea down from a more serious charge."
[end of excerpt]
Right to Know What Giuliani Finds Relevant
By Joyce Purnick
It wasn't entirely clear at first why the mayor and the police commissioner were kind enough to give the public all that information about Patrick M. Dorismond, the latest unarmed black man killed by a police officer. But over the weekend, the mayor enlightened us. "The public has a right to know," he explained.
That was it. Concern about an informed citizenry. From Rudolph W. Giuliani, whose administration so frequently withholds basic information from journalists, civic groups and elected officials that resorting to lawsuits has become routine.
What welcome news that the mayor now champions the free flow of information.
Forgive the sarcasm, but a 26-year-old man was shot dead after angrily rebuffing an undercover police officer's request for drugs. And ever since, the mayor has been demeaning him, most recently on a Fox television program yesterday, where he gave up any pretense of abiding by his own admonition "not to jump to conclusions."
Mr. Giuliani even said that he authorized Commissioner Howard Safir to reveal Mr. Dorismond's record -- confirming that he makes command police decisions.
In his harshest description yet of Mr. Dorismond's record, the mayor told the Fox reporters: "He has been arrested for robbery, attempted robbery, possession of a gun. He's been arrested several times for drugs. And in at least one incident, possibly more, when dealing with a drug situation, he beats people up."
Mr. Giuliani also said, "All the facts should be known."
The facts then, from law enforcement officials: Mr. Dorismond was arrested three times, first in 1987, when 13, for what Mr. Safir said was robbery and assault. But because the charges were dropped and the record sealed, that cannot be confirmed.
In 1993, Mr. Dorismond was arrested for assault for punching a friend who shortchanged him $10 on a marijuana purchase. He pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct.
In January 1996, he was accused of pulling a gun on a driver and threatening him. He was charged with menacing, harassment and criminal weapons possession, but no gun was found. He again pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct.
Based on the known facts, then, Mr. Dorismond committed no robbery, was a marijuana user, not a dealer, threatened someone with a gun that disappeared and punched a friend he caught cheating him.
He emerges as a man with a hot temper and a taste for marijuana -- not admirable traits but not capital offenses either. Good thing because, the F.B.I. says, one American is arrested on marijuana charges every 45 seconds -- mostly for possession.
The larger question is whether his background is relevant to his shooting in front of a Midtown Manhattan bar. "This incident has nothing to do with whether this man was a low life or Park Avenue surgeon," said Arnold Kriss, a former deputy commissioner of trials in the Police Department. "The facts of this case have to be on the four corners of what happened on that street."
According to contrasting accounts, either Mr. Dorismond attacked the undercover officer after he was approached for drugs, or the officer was the aggressor. Detective Anthony Vasquez, a backup, rushed in and, his lawyer said, his gun went off when Mr. Dorismond lunged at him. Other witnesses dispute that account.
Presumably, the district attorney, Robert M. Morgenthau, and a grand jury will sort out the facts.
But Mr. Giuliani has already judged Mr. Dorismond's history relevant: "People do act in conformity very often with their prior behavior."
Under that theory, then, here is Detective Vasquez's record, from police authorities. He shot and injured a neighbor's dog in 1996, worried it might hurt his son. The next year, he was arrested for drawing his service weapon during a bar fight in Pennsylvania; he was docked a day's vacation. Later that year, his wife accused him of domestic abuse, then dropped the complaint.
Those incidents may be relevant to the shooting. Or they may not be. The same for the Dorismond record.
Nobody can be sure at this point, but that has not stopped the mayor from calling Mr. Vasquez "a distinguished undercover officer" and repeating exaggerations of Mr. Dorismond's record.
It is a convenient tactic. It shifts attention away from a fatal police shooting and serious questions about undercover techniques and unofficial arrest quotas, and squarely on the lumpy life of the victim.
"At least take a neutral viewpoint," Mr. Giuliani admonished this weekend. He said, too: "It would seem like real hypocrisy to close off half the facts."
When the man's right, he's right.
[end of article]
Carl
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