The Shackling of New Yorks Finest

05-10-2000

The Times (London)

Two high-profile shootings have tarnished the reputation of the New York Police Department. Gregory Demaine finds morale on the force at a worrying low

The paint is blue and peeling, the steel desks date back to the 1950s. Usually the room is empty, but not this week. Six undercover officers from the New York Police Department sit around the tattered squad room looking through files, very slowly, like arthritic bureaucrats.

The cardboard files pass strangely through big hands which look more accustomed to handling something with a bit more punch than a manilla folder. These are strange days indeed for the NYPD, which until this year was admired by crime ridden cities everywhere.

If Im in here filing I cant get on somebodys blacklist, says Paul (not his real name), a plainclothes detective for six years. Im not scared of the bad guys, its the press and the community who worry me.

On a wall nearby, a banner reads NYPD - The Greatest Detectives in the World. Once, New Yorkers might have grudgingly agreed. From a community under siege, where people employed bodyguards for walking their dogs, pugnacious Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has transformed the city. His zero tolerance policy attracted worldwide attention, especially in the UK; it reversed years of police officers being held back and their commanders being told that there were limits to how far New Yorks violent crime rate could be reduced.

Giulianis policy paid huge dividends, but now the drug gangs and the illegal gun sellers sense that the political climate is turning against those who won the war. We have been portrayed as merciless killers, says Manny, a Hispanic officer and one of Pauls partners. Its like people now think we disguise ourselves so we can more efficiently slaughter innocent citizens.

Paul says: The Diallo case made the difference. Last year four undercover officers from the NYPDs street crime unit killed Amadou Diallo, an African immigrant. He was unarmed, but they mistook his keys and wallet for weapons and shot him 41 times. The officers were tried for first degree murder and acquitted.

The case has echoes of Tom Wolfes The Bonfire of the Vanities; leading the pack screaming for the Diallo officers to spend the rest of their lives in jail was the Reverend Al Sharpton, the self-promoting leader of the black community and inspiration for the character of the Reverend Bacon in Wolfes bestseller. In 1986 he tried to have two other police officers jailed on a rape charge that the supposed victim later confessed had been fabricated, allegedly with Sharptons help.

Paul says: Two years ago I went after everything, but the Diallo case has made me cautious. I dont want to hear Sharpton screaming my name outside City Hall. You make one mistake and you get ripped from obscurity. A white officer with three generations of his family in the force, he thinks race has swamped the politics of New York law enforcement. Even if the shooting is justified, your face gets on the front page of the newspaper and life is over, he says. Everything in New York is about race. If youre a white cop and shoot a black guy, forget about it. The whole city believes youre a racist killer.

After the Diallo verdicts Sharpton urged the victims mother to follow the example of Nicole Browns family in the O.J. Simpson case and sue for wrongful death, demanding millions of dollars in damages. If she wins, the officers would be bankrupt for life. Manny says: Its bad enough facing some kid with a gun every other day. Now I have to think about how much its going to cost me in lawsuits, invasive publicity and public hatred if I use my weapon.

The atmosphere was already volatile; it worsened last month when Patrick Dorismond, a 27-year-old off duty security guard, was shot dead near Madison Square Garden after a tussle with undercover narcotics officers. They asked him if he knew where drugs could be bought. Insulted, and not realising they were detectives, he swung a fist. In the ensuing melee, an officers gun was fired into Dorismonds stomach.

The shooting provoked a further round of angry demonstrations and the Manhattan district attorney is considering murder charges. NYPD officers such as Paul and Manny now feel so exposed and anxious that their squad rooms have become an unaccustomed refuge. They talk about being increasingly gun shy, and the effects are already being seen. New Yorks murder rate increased by 13 per cent in the first quarter of 2000 compared to the same period last year. Undercover detectives say the Diallo and Dorismond cases have weakened police resolve to the point where being a hero is regarded as idiotic.

The NYPD leaves it up to the individual officer to decide the level of force, says Paul. We are told to use the necessary means to oppose the danger, but now every time Im in a tight corner Ive got to think about protecting my life and staying out of some citizens beef. I know if I use any force some politician will start second guessing what I did.

Paul and his partners believe these factors have forced morale in the NYPDs specialist undercover units to crisis levels that could threaten the safety of all New Yorkers. When I joined the force there were always a few guys who would say the job sucks, Paul says. Now almost everyone says that. You can see the fear all over the place. We cant do the job properly if the public sneers every time one of us says he is a cop.

Manny says many officers are just going through the motions of doing the job. A while back if I suspected guns or drugs I would step up to a group of guys without thinking about it, he says. Now I turn away. I used to be crazy for a collar, now I go take a break instead if I think the situation could get me on the front of tomorrows newspaper.

The aggressive pursuit of drug dealers and illegal arms sales with undercover units has been the backbone of the NYPDs fight against crime and a key factor behind the success of Mayor Giulianis drive to cut the citys murder rate. Undercover officers see a risk that the recent increase is not a statistical fluke, but the start of a trend. They know that a few months of police riding desks instead of arresting offenders will completely change the New York crime climate.

The crooks know we have backpedalled, says Manny. It has made them a lot more bold and I believe the guns are going to start seeping back. People forget there was a time when decent people were afraid to walk the streets. If cops stop being aggressive that fear is going to come right back.

Officials in the NYPD acknowledge there is a problem, but deny it has reached any kind of crisis proportions. There are legitimate concerns among police officers in the current environment, says Chief Thomas Fahey, commanding officer of the NYPDs public information unit. But nobody can say the mayor and the police commissioner have not supported police officers 100 per cent.

Undercover detectives accept that Giuliani stood firmly behind the officers in both the Diallo and Dorismond cases, and say they are grateful for it, but they argue that Giulianis forthright statements justifying police shootings have sometimes made their job more difficult.

Guys in undercover have become targets, says Paul. We no longer get any respect. When I show myself as a cop we get taunted. Kids start laughing and saying, OK, take me in, but dont shoot me 41 times.

So now I have started to sit back and let the job come to me. A year ago I was out looking for every ounce of crack and every illegal weapon I could find, poking in every hole, rushing through my paperwork. Now my paperwork is really tidy and it can take a whole shift to fill in forms meticulously.

Many families with a tradition of police service going back generations have become increasingly anxious about their children joining the force, especially if they have ambitions to join undercover units where promotions are most rapid.

Bobby Martin was the lieutenant in charge of the NYPDs special investigations division until he retired this month after 32 years service. Now his son has just joined a Manhattan precinct. Bobby says: From what I can see there is terribly low morale. Young officers are walking on eggshells. Once we could jump out of a car and do what we had to do, knowing, within reason, we would get backed up by the bosses. A lot of guys are wondering if that is still true.

Bobbys concerns have left him fearful for his son - but not in the way you would expect. Im more concerned about my son shooting somebody than getting shot, he says. You get hit and you are a hero; you take somebody down and, however justified, you become a scumbag.

Jimmy the Wags is one of New Yorks most colourful ex-policemen. The former NYPD detective has a successful first book - Jimmy The Wags, Street Stories Of A Private Eye - and a film deal, and his publisher wants a sequel. He should be happy, but the new hostility to the NYPD has left retired Lieutenant James J. Wagner with a broken heart.

Since he could walk and talk, Jimmys son Jim wanted to be a police officer. He passed the entrance examination last year and was ready to join the NYPD when he graduated from college. Now, however, he will not be putting on the blues worn by his father for 22 years and by his grandfather for 26 years before that. Amadou Diallo and Patrick Dorismond are the reason.

Jim says: What I see is, a cop makes a move he thought was right and the next minute he gets hung out to dry. I dont want to risk my life every day for people who dont want me there.

His father Jimmy says: The city is going to regret this hysteria against cops. Bosses have told me their guys on the street are keeping clear of situations where they might get into a shooting. It is making the bad guys much more bold about packing guns.

Senior NYPD officials say there is nothing new about the current situation, that the NYPD has been made a scapegoat before. They say that, for a while, the department was left alone to reduce the crime figures, but now the bad guys are all in jail it is open season on the police again.

We are aware there is a problem with morale, says Fahey, but its all relative; in 1990 we had 41 officers shot dead, last year just 11 died on the job out of a force of 41,000, which is much bigger than the 1990 force numbers.

But the message from many officers with long service and impeccable records is that while the NYPDs undercover elite are backpedalling to protect their careers and reputations, New Yorks tide of crime may be turning for the worse.

I get the sense there is a long-term problem being hatched, says Jimmy Wagner. When kids like my son are saying theyd rather be in a computer company and guys I know on the job are hiding from the dispatcher, then the NYPD is beginning to lose the battle - and the only people who win are the criminals.