Yes, Pursue Special Prosecutor. But Why Are Cops’ Victims Almost Always Black?
The script is all too familiar: An unarmed black man who committed no crime is approached by police and ends up shot dead. Sean Bell is just the latest in a string of victims whose final moments fit that pattern. What comes next is also pretty predictable: The officers who fired the fatal shots are indicted and stand trial and are found not guilty.
Acquittals Friday for the officers who fired on Bell and two others outside a Queens strip club in 2006 have sparked calls for a special prosecutor to handle cases in which cops kill unarmed people. It’s a reform worth pursuing. No bureaucratic shuffle can answer the key question in these tragedies, but it would engender more confidence that future cases will be investigated and prosecuted impartially.
When defendants are cops, the cozy working relationship that routinely exists between the police and a district attorney makes at least the appearance of a conflict of interest inescapable.
Make no mistake, it will always be difficult to convict officers who shoot while on duty. Life-and-death decisions made in a heartbeat should not be second-guessed cavalierly. And criminal intent is all but impossible to establish. Still, shifting the cases to a special prosecutor would help to defuse the explosive belief of many that when cops kill blacks, indictments and trials are shams.
But beyond this after-the-fact reform is the real question, and it’s one that urgently needs answering: Why, when police kill, are the victims so often black men? Such as Amadou Diallo, shot clutching his dinner and wallet outside his Bronx apartment. Or teenager Timothy Stansbury, shot on the roof of his Brooklyn building. Or Ousmane Zongo, killed when he happened upon a cop in a ministorage building. Or Patrick Dorismond, shot after voicing his ire at being approached by an undercover cop looking to buy drugs. Or bridegroom Sean Bell.
SOURCE: NewsDay.com Read more..
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