Deja Vu (Assignment)

The circumstances under which Sean Bell's (b. May 18, 1983 - d. November 25, 2006) life was needlessly taken came as no surprise to many.

The many that I speak of are the countless persons of color who have been, and continue to be, negatively impacted by a criminal justice system that is disproportionate when being brought to bear against them.

Sean Bell wasn't the first victim, and he certainly won't be the last. His death is but one in a long line of deaths, of both men and women, that resulted directly from some type of police action.

What's especially infuriating is the fact that there has yet to be a judge or jury that is willing to hold a single officer accountable, by sentencing one of them to prison, for the shattered lives that such actions have created in their wake.

I won't attempt to argue the merits of the prosecution's case against the police officers that were tried, and subsequently acquitted, for killing him.

Instead, I'll provide you with a narrative that clearly establishes a pattern of how innocent people's lives are snuffed-out by the police department, because of the routine application of deadly force against "minorities" living in America's ghettos, particularly those of New York City.

Timothy Stansbury (b. November 16, 1984 - d. January 24, 2004)

A 19 year-old Brooklyn youth, whose only crime was passing through the doorway of a Bed-Stuy housing project rooftop that, unbeknownst to him, was being patrolled by an NYPD officer who had his gun drawn. His purpose for being on that rooftop: To cross over to an adjoining building, where a party was being held. According to the officer, Richard S. Neri Jr., the sudden appearance of Stansbury as he opened the door caused him to fire his pistol. The round that was fired pierced Stansbury's chest, killing him instantly. Neri was brought before a grand-jury, but they opted to not indict him on charges of criminally-negligent homicide; ruling that Stansbury's death was accidental.

Alberta Spruill (b. 1946 - d. May 16,2003)

After receiving an erroneous tip from an informant, the NYPD's Emergency Services Unit (ESU) launched an early morning, no-knock search warrant, raid on a Harlem apartment that was alleged to have contained a closely guarded cache of guns and drugs. Using a concussion grenade during the breach, they stormed into the smoke filled apartment and arrested its sole occupant: 57 year-old city employee, Alberta Spruill. About to leave for work that day, the terrified Spruill was placed under arrest. Shortly afterward, a police captain on the scene realized that the layout of her apartment didn't match the description provided by their informant, and she was subsequently released. Although she stated upon her arrest that she suffered from a heart-condition, Spruill declined medical attention when it had been offered to her. Despite her earlier refusal, an ambulance was summoned. Tragically, while en-route to the hospital, she went into cardiac arrest and died later that morning. The city medical examiner ruled her death to be a homicide; the result stemming from her "stress and fear" during the raid. Before long, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly ordered several personnel changes within the department: the transfer of the chief ESU commander, the reassignment of the ESU lieutenant who supervised the raid, and the transfer of the commander of the precinct, the 25th, that housed the ESU officers who executed the operation.

Ousmane Zongo (b. 1968 - d. May 22, 2003)

Less than a week after the death of Alberta Spruill, Ousmane Zongo, a West African man who came to the U.S. looking for work so he could provide for the wife, mother, and two young children that he left behind in Burkina Faso, was gunned down during a police raid on a Chelsea warehouse where a CD/DVD piracy ring had been operating. Coincidentally, Zongo worked out of that same warehouse as a repairman of the African art and furniture that were sold there; he didn't know of the piracy ring. The police executed their search warrant on two separate storage rooms of the warehouse, one on the third floor and another on the sixth; Zongo occupied the third. A lone plainclothes officer, Brian Conroy, had been guarding a room full of counterfeit discs on the third floor when he encountered Zongo. According to him, though he was disguised as a postal worker, the badge hanging from around his neck identifying him as a police officer was clearly visible, but a chase ensued, nevertheless. 50 yards and one dead-end later, Zongo allegedly tried to wrest Conroy's gun away from him. Conroy went on to state that he felt Zongo's actions left him with little recourse, but to shoot him. Zongo, who didn't speak English, was fatally shot four times in both his abdomen and chest. The veracity of Conroy's claims couldn't be independently verified, as there were neither witnesses to the shooting, nor surveillance cameras inside of the warehouse. He was charged with reckless-manslaughter, but the jury in his case couldn't reach a verdict, and declared a mistrial. He stood before the court a second time, but in that trial the verdict came down from the bench. The presiding judge in that case found Conroy guilty, and sentenced him to five-years probation and 500 hours worth of community service, but no prison. As a result of the guilty verdict, Conroy was dismissed from the NYPD.

Patrick Dorismond (b. 1974 - d. March 16, 2000)

During a botched buy and bust operation, Patrick Dorismond, security guard and father of two young girls, was shot to death by an undercover NYPD detective while standing outside of a lounge. Two other detectives who were nearby serving as backup did not witness the shooting, and thus were uncertain as to whether or not the detective in question, Anthony Vasquez, had fired his gun deliberately or accidentally. All three detectives had made several arrests in the area, a suspected Bloods gang hangout, that evening. They were preparing to leave when Vasquez spotted Dorismond and a companion coming out of the Wakamba Cocktail Lounge. The detective approached him, and asked where he could go to purchase marijuana. Angered by Vasquez's insinuation, Dorismond told him to keep moving. A heated exchange of words followed before the two men engaged in a scuffle that would end with Dorismond shot dead. Immediately after the shooting, then Mayor Rudolph Giulliani, had asked for the media to, "allow the facts to be analyzed and investigated without people trying to let their biases, their prejudices, their emotions, their stereotypes dictate the results." In contradictory fashion, however, Mayor Giullani condemned Dorismond for his behavior prior to being killed. He authorized then city Police Commissioner Howard Safir to release Dorismond's sealed juvenile record; stating that he was no "altar boy." Neither Mayor Giulliani nor Commissioner Safir made any mention, however, of the fact that Detective Vasquez had, as described in a New York Times article, "in 1997 pulled a gun in a bar fight, and before that he shot a neighbor's stray Rottweiler." That July a grand-jury hearing was held, and Detective Vasquez escaped an indictment for the fatal shooting, as the circumstances involving Dorismond's death were deemed accidental.

Amadou Diallo (b. September 2, 1975 - d. Feburary 4, 1999)

Before Sean Bell was felled by a 50 round hail of gunfire, Amadou Diallo, a Guinea native who had lived in the U.S. for more than two years, was cut down by NYPD officers from inside the vestibule of his Bronx apartment building. What was particularly striking about the manner in which Diallo had died was the fact that after taking out his wallet, which the officers responsible for his death mistakenly believed to be a gun, in an ill-fated attempt to identify himself, he was shot 19 times; 41 rounds having been fired, in total. The four officers who killed Diallo, Kenneth Boss, Sean Carroll, Edward McMellon and Richard Murphy, were assigned to the city's Street Crimes Unit. They were there to make arrests that night as a means of turning up information that would, potentially, lead them to a serial rapist they had been searching for. The officers approached Diallo, who had just returned home from a local eatery, and questioned him from his apartment building's vestibule. The officers hadn't radioed in prior to their engagement of Diallo, but it was later revealed that they believed he bore a resemblance to the rapist they were hunting after. The four officers were charged with second-degree manslaughter, and tried in an Albany courtroom, as a change-of-venue request had been granted in their case; due to concerns regarding the potential lack of impartiality by a local Bronx jury. All four men were acquitted of the charges against them.

I want to make one thing clear, this is not a question of racism, and this is not about Black vs. White; as a number of the officers involved in the incidents mentioned were "minorities", themselves. This is a mere reflection of the disparity between the privileges enjoyed, and the liberties taken, by the men and women dressed in blue, and the civil-rights of John-Q Public.

The answer to the question of whether or not the circumstances that led to the deaths of these individuals were accidental, unintended, or otherwise, is purely subjective. Furthermore, no one in their right mind would dare to question the severity of the danger that these truly brave men and women face, each and every single day, on the streets.

What can be argued (and with little difficulty, at that) is the fact that the divide between police departments and the local communities whose security they are charged with providing, particularly the citizens who live in impoverished urban centres, has jeopardized people's lives.

Be it "the thin blue line" or "the blue wall of silence", this barrier has yet to be diminished in any capacity, and until these departments and their union representatives come to heed the call for that gap to be bridged, innocent people will unjustly continue to die.

The neighborhoods of Harlem, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Jamaica aren't quite the hotbeds of violence that we see on television during nightly news reports about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet, the militaristic tactics employed by the NYPD, LAPD, and other police departments nationwide, in high-crime rate communities, are virtually identical to those of our armed forces fighting overseas.

Every Iraqi isn't considered to be hostile, nor should every Black or Latino. Unfortunately, like some of those Iraqi civilians, there are a number of Blacks and Latinos who live in slums and ghettos; where the level of crime is, typically, greater. Still, that hardly justifies every resident of such communities to fall under police suspicion, but this is the recurring issue.

Something must be done to improve the police department's community relations, and more non-lethal measures should be explored.

Otherwise, more Sean Bells will be laid to rest, and their deaths, like those that preceded them, will be meaningless.