Issue Date: June 24, 2010

Police Brutality

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Order, respect for law and safety are key elements in any society that seeks to ensure a general level of security and welfare for all its citizens. To accomplish these goals, police are granted unique powers to use force legally against people who threaten to violate society's laws. Yet history and several current incidents show that police sometimes overstep what many people consider to be the bounds of their duty and apply excessive force against some members of society.

Most criminologists say that incidents of police brutality have fallen drastically over the last 30 years as officers have become better trained and more knowledgeable about preventing potentially violent situations. Yet few deny that police brutality still occurs. The question now is whether incidents of police brutality are infrequent exceptions to generally respectable and honorable behavior by law-enforcement officials or whether such police violence is so common that society should change how police departments operate and who monitors their activity.

Many civil-rights groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), contend that police brutality is too often condoned or covered up by police departments. They acknowledge that a handful of bad officers are often to blame for a disproportionate amount of harm, but say that police departments rarely reprimand or take full responsibility for the wrong-doers in their ranks. They also contend that racism, both at the institutional and individual level, is widespread in police culture in some departments. Blacks and Hispanics are too often the targets and victims of police brutality, they say, which only serves to break down respect for officers in minority neighborhoods.

Law-enforcement officials and others are quick to defend police departments and officers. Media hype, they say, often creates a distorted and overblown picture of the frequency and severity of alleged police-brutality cases. They deny that racism plays a role in cases of police misconduct. They note that high-crime neighborhoods, in which police are more likely to work--and be needed--are often heavily populated by blacks and other minorities. They accuse the media and public of failing to realize the immense stress and responsibilities that officers face on a daily basis while fighting to keep people safe.

Civil-rights groups seek greater accountability of police departments. They generally support greater use of independent review boards to investigate and monitor the kind and frequency of complaints of police brutality. Community policing, which focuses on fostering ties between neighborhoods and the police who serve them, and higher standards for police recurits, are also advocated. While police department support some of these changes, many officers are concerned that too much emphasis on alleged police wrongdoing will restrict their ability to enforce laws.

Brutality and Riots in the 1960s

Unlike many other countries, the U.S. does not have a national police force. The Constitution gives individual states the power to police, and the states have, in turn, given policing responsibilities to local municipalities. At the time of the nation's founding, the decentralization of police power was thought to be a way to make it more difficult for the national government to repress its citizens.

In the late 19th century, police and striking workers clashed repeatedly when officers were sent to quash labor disputes. In Martinsburg, W. Va., some 100 people died in fighting between police, state militia and workers during the U.S.'s first nationwide strike of railroad workers, in 1877. A year earlier, at least 11 officers and protesters died in Chicago during an anarchist-led demonstration against police brutality. The closing decade of the 19th century saw violent clashes between police and strikers at mines near Coeur d'Alene, Idaho (1892), a steel mill in Homestead, Pa. (1892) and the Pullman railroad-car company in Chicago in 1894.

There have been relatively few such large-scale incidents of police brutality and repression in the latter half of the 20th century. One era that defied that trend was the 1960s, when more than 130 major riots occurred. An estimated 84 of them were sparked by real or perceived abuse of citizens by police.

Images of black Americans being beaten by officers, sprayed by water hoses and attacked by police dogs were broadcast on television nationwide, galvanizing greater support for the black civil-rights movement. In an assertion of federal law-enforcement power, national guards were frequently deployed, often in the South, to protect black Americans from hostile local police. The local authorities sometimes became a threat to blacks struggling to assert their right to vote, march or enter desegregated schools.

Police brutality remains an issue that has deep racial overtones. Riots in Los Angeles (1968), Newark, N.J. (1967), Detroit, Mich. (1967), Miami, Fla. (1980 and 1989) and Washington, D.C. (1991) were all triggered by the arrest or shooting of blacks or Hispanics by police.

Police brutality returned to the forefront of public concern as a result of the videotaped beating of black motorist Rodney King by four white Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers in March 1991. The pictures of King getting clubbed and kicked more than 50 times as he lay on the ground reignited public concern that brutality and bigotry still plagued some police departments. The April 29, 1992 acquittal on most counts of the officers involved in the beating sparked four days of race riots in Los Angeles, mostly perpetrated by black or Hispanic men. Sixty deaths, more than 2,300 injuries and nearly $1 billion in damage were attributed to the riots, the worst urban upheaval in the nation in the 20th century. [See 1996 King Case Continues in the Courts]

Confidence in the LAPD eroded further, especially among blacks, during the double murder trial of O.J. Simpson, a black former professional football star accused of murdering his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman, in June 1994. O.J. Simpson was acquitted of both those charges in September 1995.

On audio tapes released during the trial, LAPD Detective Mark Fuhrman could be heard making disparaging remarks about blacks and discussing how he framed suspects. On the tapes, Fuhrman also described beating suspects until "their faces were just mush." [See 1996 Racial Disparities]

Instances of confirmed and alleged police brutality and corruption have continued to make headlines repeatedly over the past several years in America's major cities, including New Orleans, La., Pittsburgh, Pa. and New York City. [See 1996 Police-Brutality Cases Around the Nation]

On April 1, 1996, in pictures reminiscent of the King beating, a helicopter news crew videotaped two white deputy sheriffs of Riverside County, Calif. as they beat two illegal Mexican immigrants after an 80-mile high-speed car chase on California freeways. The apparent abuse was criticized sharply by Mexico's foreign-relations ministry, which called the incident a "flagrant violation of the human rights" of Mexican citizens. Immigrant-and civil-rights groups condemned the incident and helped the two victims file a $10 million suit against Riverside County. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) launched an inquiry into the incident as well.

Race and Brutality

The beating of King and the Mexican immigrants in California and the racial slurs of Fuhrman add fuel to the claims of blacks and minorities that they are disproportionately victimized by police brutality and harassment. But is racism to blame for police misbehavior? Many civil-rights organizations say yes. In an investigation of police misconduct, compiled into a book entitled Beyond the Rodney King Story, the NAACP contends:

Racism critically influences how the police perform their law-enforcement functions. The use of sweeps through minority areas in the name of crime fighting, the targeting of young black males for 'stop and frisks'...and the creation of criminal profiles that inevitably focus on African Americans and Latinos have become standard police practice in urban America.

The NAACP notes that between 1976 and 1987, about 1,800 blacks and 3,000 whites were killed by officers. Since blacks comprise approximately 12% of the general population, the data suggest that blacks are about three times more likely to be killed by officers than whites, according to the NAACP.

In Philadelphia, the NAACP has joined the ACLU in a class-action suit against the city, charging it with not taking measures to combat bigotry, harassment and corruption in the city's police department. Six Philadelphia police officers have pleaded guilty to a variety of corruption charges, including lying under oath, taking money from drug dealers and framing suspects. As a result of a federal probe launched in February 1996, 56 criminal cases, most involving poor black and Hispanic defendants in the city's 39th precinct, have been dismissed. More than 1,400 arrests made from 1987 to 1992 in the city's 39th precinct are under review.

Philadelphia Mayor Edward Rendell (D) and Police Commissioner Richard Neal are also named as defendants in the lawsuit, which accuses city officials of being "deliberately indifferent to the pattern of abuse and unconstitutional conduct that has become an integral part of policing in Philadelphia." Darryl Shuler, a resident of Philadelphia's 39th precinct and a plaintiff in the class-action suit, says that white officers are so distrusted in the neighborhood that many minorities "run when they see police coming."

Those sentiments were echoed in the controversial ruling of U.S. District Judge Harold Baer Jr. when he threw out crucial evidence in a multimillion-dollar drug case in New York City in January 1996. In the case, four young men began running away from a parked car when they saw two policemen approaching, prompting the officers to give chase and search the car, where they found nearly $4 million worth of drugs. Baer ruled that fleeing suspects do not give officers the necessary "probable cause" to search a defendant's car and threw out the drugs as evidence. "Residents in this neighborhood tended to regard police officers as corrupt, abusive and violent," wrote Baer. "Had the men not run when the cops began to stare at them, it would have been unusual."

Baer's decision and his comments on the police were condemned by New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani (R) and Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole (R, Kan.). After hearing new testimony from prosecutors, however, Baer reversed his ruling and allowed the evidence.

As the Philadelphia corruption scandal and the Baer ruling attest, confidence in white officers who operate in black neighborhoods has eroded among citizens who are supposed to be made to feel more secure in their neighborhood. In a poll released in April 1996 by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies (JCPES), 43% of blacks but only 13% of the overall population said that they believe that "police brutality and harassment of African Americans is a serious problem" where they live.

Charges of Racism Challenged

Yet some people contend that allegations of racism and brutality among police officers are often exaggerated. It is the frequency of crime in certain neighborhoods, and not the racial composition of the people who live there, that determines whether police will target an area to monitor more closely, they say.

John DeSantis, author of The New Untouchables, says that "police violence becomes a mere symptom of the underlying problems" of racism in other areas of society. While racism may play a role in contributing to the economic inequities and other social problems that may lead to high crime rates in neighborhoods heavily populated by minorities, police are not to blame for these underlying problems, he says. "By focusing on the racial aspect of the police violence debate, complainants (except in those specific cases where race undeniably played a role) weaken their position," says DeSantis.

DeSantis cites a 1987 study that found that there is no statistical difference between police shootings of whites and blacks. According to the study, 47% of both blacks and whites were shot while they were attacking an officer. Forty-four percent of blacks and 42% of whites were shot while they were fleeing an officer. When they were shot by law-enforcement officers, 47% of whites were armed with guns, compared with 53% of blacks.

Journalist Jon Katz blames the media for giving "the misleading impression that brutal cops represent a significant and lethal threat to minority neighborhoods." The greater problem facing these neighborhoods is violent crime, according to Katz, not the rare case of excessive force by officers. Katz says:

We take at face value the idea that a cop would murder a black or Hispanic man for no reason other than race. It surely has happened....But it doesn't happen often--and certainly not nearly as often or casually as underclass urban kids kill one another. If the media's concern is racism, why not cover these killings more intensely?

Many blacks are stuck between their distrust of police and their fears of violence. The JCPES poll found that blacks are more likely than the general population to fear crime. According to the poll, 52% of blacks but only 31% of Americans overall say that there are areas in their neighborhood where they would be afraid to walk alone at night. Twenty-six percent of blacks said that they or someone close to them had been the victim of a violent crime within the past two years, compared with 16% of the general population.

William Tucker, author of Vigilante: The Backlash Against Crime in America, writes in the magazine Commentary that police are being "morally disarmed and demoralized by a climate of opinion that seeks to regard them as a bigger threat to society than the criminals they have to confront." Tucker says that the greatest threat to urban neighborhoods is an "unprecedented crime wave among young blacks." He predicts that youth crime will continue to grow over the next decade. "If the police continue to be incapacitated by a fixation on their occasional misbehavior, we--and most especially the young blacks among us--will have even less protection against violent crime in the future than we do today."

Cops' Stress

While no one condones police brutality, many cops say that the context in which alleged brutality cases occur is often neither understood nor explained well by members of the media, who tend to demonize cops involved. "I'm out there sweating bullets, my heart's going 95 miles per hour and some guy is sitting in an air-conditioned office telling me what I should have done," said Dallas, Texas police officer Jay James in 1990, referring to reporters. James had been the subject of an investigation after he shot at but missed a suspect who was waving a gun.

Katz says it is surprising how rare cases of police violence against citizens are, given the demands placed on officers and the environment in which they work. Katz claims that in large cities such as New York City, the number of deaths attributed to officers has declined over the past two decades, despite the increase in illegal handguns and high-power weaponry that officers now need to defend themselves against.

In a study of the use of force by police in America's largest cities, William Geller and Michael Scott of the Police Executive Research Forum found that police shootings of civilians are relatively rare. Scott and Geller reported that a policeman in New York City would need to work for 694 years before the officer would be statistically expected to kill a criminal or other civilian. For officers in Milwaukee, Wis., the figure is 1,299 years and in Chicago, the figure is 594 years.

Protecting Their Own

Most criminologists agree that a few corrupt and violent officers on a police force are responsible for instigating the majority of brutality cases. "In every department, there's a small group of officers who claim a huge percentage of complaints," according to Samuel Walker, a criminal justice professor at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, Neb. These so-called bad apples, says Walker, are often "officers who can't seem to control themselves in high-pressure situations."

Yet many people say that police departments are equally responsible for incidents of brutality since they do not aggressively reprimand officers when misconduct begins. They say the intense bonds between officers often makes them more loyal to one another than to the legal system. They note that more than two dozen officers were present at the scene during the beating of King, yet no one interceded.

In the wake of the King beating, an investigative commission, chaired by local lawyer Warren Christopher, who is now the U.S. secretary of state, studied procedures and brutality within the LAPD. The so-called Christopher Commission found that 10% of the force's officers accounted for 33% of all complaints of brutality. Forty-four members of the 8,450-member force were singled out by the commission as "problem" officers, who each had at least six complaints of excessive force lodged against them during the five years prior to the King case. These officers "repetitively use excessive force against the public and persistently ignore the written guidelines of the department regarding force," said the commission's report.

The commission faulted the entire LAPD for its tolerance of officers accused of misbehavior. The LAPD, noted the report, "not only failed to deal with the problem group of officers but it often rewarded them with positive evaluations and promotions."

New York Times columnist Bob Herbert makes a similar complaint against the New Orleans Police Department. Since 1994, more than 50 New Orleans police officers have been arrested on charges ranging from drug trafficking and burglary to rape and murder. Herbert says that the New Orleans Police Department "has been the national champion in complaints of police brutality" for most of the past 20 years. "[The police department] has been a cesspool for decades," says Herbert. "The police officers have known it, a succession of city administrations has known it, the people of New Orleans have known it. Nothing was done." [See 1996 Police-Brutality Cases Around the Nation]

The NAACP and others contend that the reluctance of police officers to report problem behavior by fellow officers masks the true numbers of corrupt and abusive policemen in a force's ranks. Compounding the problem is the reluctance or fear among abused or harassed citizens to come forward with complaints, they contend. "Some citizens fear a complaint will result in retaliation by the police, ranging from harassment to criminal charges," explains the NAACP. "Witnesses to and victims of police misconduct fear they will be arrested if they complain about the police."

Reforms Sought

Uncovering cases of alleged police brutality or misconduct is difficult due to the fierce loyalty between officers. For that reason, methods of investigating accusations of misconduct that rely on officers and supervisors are often criticized by those advocating policing reform for being inadequate and ineffective. Civilian Review Boards (CRBs), in which citizen panels rather than supervising officers weigh evidence of police misconduct, are often advocated instead. CRBs have become more popular over the past few decades; today, some 70 municipalities have CRBs in place, including 35 of the nation's largest cities.

Citizens groups say that CRBs are fair and unbiased because they have no direct political affiliation and have no ties to police departments. In many cases, a city's CRB publishes an annual report, listing the number and categories of complaints that citizens have filed against officers. The data can be used to advise supervisors in the department about the most frequent kinds of complaints and the officers who are most often cited by citizens.

Yet the CRBs are often faulted for spending too much time on frivolous complaints, which some say are filed by suspects who are merely trying to get revenge on the police officers who arrested them. Tucker claims that "serious complaints are often the work of criminals who are seeking some leverage in the charges against them."

Another prospect that some reformers say could lessen incidents of police brutality is community policing. Although defined in various ways, community policing generally tries to put more officers on foot patrols so that they have more active presences in neighborhoods. Advocates say that community policing eases the anxieties of police officers as it allows them to get to know their environment and the people they are serving.

Critics say that community policing is a costly method of law enforcement that has yet to show any advantages over traditional methods of policing in reducing crime or lessening police misconduct. Many say the money spent to hire extra officers for community policing programs could be better used to update the inadequate resources of many police departments.

Undertaking Changes

Some police departments have already begun internal reforms to address police misconduct and brutality. A Justice Department report issued in April 1996 found that most police departments are increasing their age and educational requirements for recruits. The idea is that older, more experienced recruits will be better able to handle the pressures of police work and will be less likely to make rash decisions that could embarrass the department or hurt people. In the latest figures available, the number of departments in 1993 that required officers to have at least some college education increased to 12%, from 6% in 1990, according to the Justice Department report.

The NYPD in 1995 boosted its admissions criteria to require new recruits to have at least two years of college or two years of military service. The department also increased the minimum age requirement to 22 from 20. A New York Times editorial noted that "of the 86 officers arrested for corrupt acts over the last four years [in New York City], 74 would not have been hired under the new standards."

Individual departments are also initiating changes to try to improve the quality of their officers and increase their standing with the community. New Orleans Police Chief Richard Pennington has initiated a host of reforms in his police department. Besides giving officers their first pay raise in eight years, Pennington assembled a team of military and FBI officers to train his police sergeants in ethics and leadership.

Whether or not police brutality is as prevalent as some people claim, there is agreement that the image of police officers has suffered as a result of police-brutality cases over the last several years. A few headline news reports on police brutality can cast a huge shadow on police departments around the country. Both internal changes, such as diversity training and higher recruitment standards, and external changes, such as CRBs or community policing programs, may help improve that image.

Bibliography

Barry, Dan. "One Arrest, Two Versions." New York Times (February 22, 1996): B1.

Bray, Rosemary. "What Blacks Think of White Cops." New York (July 11, 1994): 33.

Cannon, Lou. "What Have They Learned in Southern California?" Washington Post (April 7, 1996): C7.

DeSantis, John. The New Untouchables. Chicago, Ill.: The Noble Press, Inc., 1994.

DiCanio, Margaret. Encyclopedia of Violence. New York City: Facts On File, Inc., 1993.

Fletcher, Michael. "Study Tracks Blacks' Crime Concerns." Washington Post (April 21, 1996): A11.

Gibbs, Nancy. "Officers On the Edge." Time (September 26, 1994): 62.

Gleik, Elizabeth. "The Crooked Blue Line." Time (September 11, 1995): 38.

Hayes, Dennis. "Police Brutality: What We Can Do!" Crisis (August/September 1993): 42.

Herbert, Bob. "Disgracing the Badge." New York Times (September 18, 1995): A15.

Herbert, Bob. "Killer Cops." New York Times (September 15, 1995): A35.

Horwitz, Sari. "The Reality Police." Washington Post (April 1, 1996): A1.

Janofsky, Michael. "Philadelphia Police Scandal Results In a Plan for a Suit Claiming Racism." New York Times (December 12, 1995): D23.

Johnson, Dirk. "Friend of Slain Man Lied About Police." New York Times (November 13, 1995): A12.

Katz, Jon. "Is Police Brutality a Myth?" New York (July 11, 1994): 38.

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Beyond the Rodney King Story. Boston, Mass.: Northeastern University Press, 1995.

New York Times (April 8, 1996). "Police Gain in Weaponry, Not Diversity": A12.

Noble, Kenneth. "The Endless Rodney King Case." New York Times (February 4, 1995): D5.

Noble, Kenneth. "English Commands Preceded Deputies' Beating of Mexicans." New York Times (April 10, 1996): A12.

Noble, Kenneth. "Videotape of Beating by Two Deputies Jolts Los Angeles." New York Times (April 3, 1996): A10.

Onishi, Norimitsu. "Youth Drops Accusation About Police." New York Times (August 7, 1995): B2.

Stewart, Sally Ann; Holland, Gale. "FBI Probes Videotaped Beating." USA Today (April 3, 1996): 3A.

Tucker, William. "Is Police Brutality the Problem?" Commentary (January 1993): 23.

van Natta, Don. "Judge Finds Wit Tested by Criticisms." New York Times (February 7, 1996): B1.

Witkin, Gordon. "When the Bad Guys are Cops." U.S. News & World Report (September 11, 1995): 20.

Contact Information

Information on how to contact the organizations that are mentioned in the discussion of police brutality is mentioned below:

Keywords and Points

For further information about the ongoing debate over police brutality, search for the following words and terms in electronic databases and other publications:

Police Brutality Update (August 2000)

Since ICOF's story on police brutality in May 1996, a series of incidents have kept the issue in the headlines. Notably, a string of cases in New York City has sparked many demonstrations against police brutality there. Key events included:

• An Allegheny County, Pennsylvania court in November 1996 cleared a police officer on charges of involuntary manslaughter stemming from the 1995 death of motorist Jonny Gammage. The officer was one of five involved in a scuffle that ended in the fatal suffocation of Gammage. The case attracted publicity in part because Gammage was black and all five officers were white. All the members of the jury that acquitted the officer were also white. [See 1996 Facts On File Crime: Officer Cleared in Pittsburgh Death]
• In October 1998 New York City said it would pay $2.94 million to settle a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of a 29-year-old man who died in police custody. Officials called it the largest settlement ever paid by the city in a wrongful death suit involving police brutality. The man, Anthony Baez, had died of asphyxiation in December 1994, after an officer used an illegal choke hold to restrain him. The officer was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison on federal charges of violating Baez's civil rights. [See 1998 Facts On File Crime: NYC Settles Suit in 1994 Arrest Death]
• Riverside County (California) District Attorney Grover Trask in May 1999 cleared four police officers in the December 1998 shooting death of an apparently unconscious woman. The woman, Tyisha Miller, was sitting in a locked car with a gun in her lap when police approached. According to Trask, the police broke the car window when they were unable to rouse her. When Miller began to move, Trask said, an officer believed that Miller was reaching for the gun, and in the subsequent confusion, the officers fired 23 bullets, 12 of which hit Miller. Trask said that while the officers had shown poor judgment, they had not committed a crime. Officials said that the Justice Department would launch an investigation into the incident. [See 1999 Facts On File Crime: California Police Cleared in Teen's Death]
• A jury in Albany, New York, in February 2000 cleared four white New York City police officers on second-degree murder charges stemming from the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man a year earlier. The man, Guinea immigrant Amadou Diallo, was standing in the vestibule of his apartment when police approached him. The officers claimed to have started firing when Diallo reacted by suspiciously reaching for a black object in his pocket. Believing that the object was a gun, officers fired 41 shots at Diallo, 19 of which struck him. The object was later determined to be a wallet. The acquittal of the officers sparked weeks of protest in the streets of New York City, and demonstrators held vigils to protest what they said were the city police department's reckless tactics. [See 2000 Facts On File NYC Police Officers Acquitted in Diallo Shooting]
• A U.S. District Court jury in New York City in March 2000 convicted three officers on charges relating to the August 1997 torture of Haitian immigrant Abner Louima. The officers were found guilty of trying to obstruct the investigation into the assault and of lying to authorities. A fourth officer in June 1999 had pleaded guilty to the assault, which included sodomizing Louima with a stick in a police station bathroom. [See 2000 Facts On File Crime: NYC Officers Convicted in Torture Cover-up]
• An undercover New York City police officer in March 2000 fatally shot an unarmed black man, Patrick Dorismond, outside a city bar. The officer approached Dorismond and asked if he had any drugs to sell. Eyewitnesses said Dorismond became angry and a fight broke out. During the struggle, the officer's gun went off and Dorismond was fatally wounded. [See 2000 Facts On FileCrime: NYC Police Shooting Sparks Controversy]

In a few cases, protests against police brutality have turned violent:

• The fatal shooting of a black motorist by a white officer sparked a riot in St. Petersburg, Florida, in October 1996. At least 11 people were injured and at least 26 buildings were set on fire. An angry crowd, some members of which chanted "Stop police brutality in the black community," pelted officers with rocks, bricks and bottles. The incident that began the riots occurred earlier in the day when two white policemen stopped a car for speeding. An officer fired on the car after the driver refused to get out and lurched the car forward. The driver was fatally wounded in the shooting. A grand jury in November 1996 cleared the officer of wrongdoing, finding that the officer was not negligent or racially motivated. [See 1996 Facts On File Crime: Shooting Sets Off St. Petersburg, Florida Riot]
• A September 1998 rally in New York City that was designed to address issues such as police brutality and education for blacks ended in a clash between police and marchers. The event, billed as the "Million Youth March," was organized to stress themes of black unity, but it also included sharp anti-police rhetoric from speakers, including the march's organizer, Khallid Abdul Muhammad. Police rushed the stage as Muhammad concluded his speech. Protesters reacted by hurling bottles and chairs, and police responded by wielding their batons and releasing pepper spray. One civilian and 15 officers were injured. [See 1998 Facts On File Other U.S. News: Police, Marchers Clash at Black Youth Rally; Other Developments]

In other news relating to police brutality:

• An April 1997 Supreme Court ruling sharply curbed the ability of individuals to sue governments in cases involving police brutality. The case, Bryan County Board of Commissioners v. Brown, centered on a 1991 incident in which a woman was hauled from her truck by a police officer and thrown to the ground. The woman, Jill Brown, suffered severe knee injuries. Brown sued the county, claiming it was negligent for failing to check the police records of the officer, whose criminal record included charges of assault and battery. The Supreme Court said that the law under which Brown sued, the 1871 Civil Rights Act, did not apply in this case because the county was not directly responsible for Brown's injuries. Analysts said the case could have a broad impact on future brutality cases by making it more difficult to prove that municipalities are liable for injuries caused by their employees. [See 1997 Facts On File Supreme Court: Municipal Liability Suits Limited]
• The Justice Department announced in April 1998 that it would not pursue a case against former Los Angeles police detective Mark Fuhrman. Fuhrman had provided key testimony in the 1995 double murder trial of O.J. Simpson, but tape recordings played during the trial cast doubt on Fuhrman's integrity. On the tapes, recorded in 1988, Fuhrman said he had participated in police beatings and other abuses of power. The Justice Department said it could not prosecute Fuhrman for brutality crimes he mentioned on the tapes because the statute of limitations for any such crimes had expired. [See 1998 Facts On File People in the News]
• The Justice Department in October 1999 filed a civil-rights lawsuit against the city police department in Columbus, Ohio. The lawsuit, based on a review of more than 300 complaints against the Columbus police, claimed that the department routinely used excessive force, conducted improper searches and made false arrests. [See 1999 Facts On File Law Enforcement: U.S. Sues Ohio Police Department]

Police Brutality Update (October 2003)

Since ICOF's last update on police brutality in August 2000, court proceedings in two prominent New York City police brutality cases drew to a close. Among the key events:

• Police brutality in the U.S. became the object of international attention on May 15, 2000, when the U.N. Committee Against Torture reported that the U.S. had fallen short in its compliance with the international treaty against torture, which it had signed in 1984. In addition to police brutality, the committee cited the use of electric stun belts and inmate abuse as breaches of the treaty. [See 2000 Facts On File: United Nations--U.S. Signs War Crimes Tribunal Treaty; Other Developments.]
• All criminal and administrative proceedings in the closely watched case of Amadou Diallo ended on April 27, 2001, when New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik said there would be no punishment for the four police officers who had killed the unarmed West African immigrant in 1999. At the end of the previous January, officials of the U.S. Justice Department had announced they would not bring federal criminal charges against the officers, as Mary Jo White, the U.S. attorney for New York's Southern District, explained that investigators believed they would not be able to win a federal criminal conviction because they lacked proof that the officers had fired at Diallo "with the specific intent to use unreasonable force." In February 2000 a jury had acquitted the officers of criminal charges in a state trial, an event that provoked protests and provoked ofagainst police brutality and racial bias. [See 2001 Facts On File: Law Enforcement--Federal Charges Rejected in Diallo Case; Crime--News in Brief.]
• Another high-profile New York City police brutality case, that of Haitian immigrant Abner Louima, also wound its way to a conclusion. On July 12, 2001, Louima agreed to settle for $8.75 million a civil lawsuit against New York City that stemmed from a 1997 incident in which four police officers had beaten and sexually assaulted him in a station house. On February 28, 2002, a panel of the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York threw out the conviction of Charles Schwarz, a former police officer, in Louima's torture and also overturned verdicts that Schwarz and two other officers had obstructed justice by conspiring to cover up the attack. On March 25, however, Schwarz, who was already facing a retrial in June on civil rights charges, was charged with two new counts of perjury. He pleaded not guilty to both counts. The case ended on September 21, when U.S. District Judge Reena Raggi sentenced Schwarz, who had been convicted on one count of perjury on July 16, to five years in prison. Under an agreement between prosecutors and defense attorneys, the government dropped two civil rights charges and a second perjury charge. In addition, prosecutors would recommend that prison officials reduce the sentence to 47 months if Schwarz refrained from publicly declaring his innocence with respect to the dropped charges. The agreement came two days before Schwarz was due to begin his fourth trial, but it rendered that trial unnecessary. [See 2001 Facts On File: Crime--Louima Settles Lawsuit Against NYC; 2002 Crime--NYC Louima Case Convictions Overturned; Crime--New Charges Filed in NYC Louima Case; Crime--Deal Reached in NYC Louima Torture Case.]
• It was reported on August 10, 2001, that the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Lawyers Guild and two coalitions against police brutality had filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles and its police department. The suit charged that officers had used excessive force against protesters at the Democratic National Convention in August 2000. [See 2001 Facts On File: State and Local Politics--News in Brief.]

Police Brutality Update (June 2010)

Since ICOF last covered police brutality in October 2003, police officers in several major U.S. cities have been caught on camera beating suspects, and two New York City police shootings sparked racially tinged controversies. Among the key events:

• A Los Angeles jury remained deadlocked on July 29, 2003, on convicting an Inglewood, California, police officer for the beating of a handcuffed suspect in 2002. The officer, Jeremy Morse, had claimed that the suspect, who was black, reached down Morse's pants, prompting the beating. Critics of the court's proceedings cited that the jury had only one black member, and thus did not fairly represent Inglewood's population, which was approximately half black. [See 2003 Facts On File: Law Enforcement: FBI Disciplinary Record Faulted...Other News]
• On November 30, 2003, a black resident of Cincinnati, Ohio, died during a confrontation with police. A police videotape showed the man, Nathaniel Jones, attacking one of six officers before being repeatedly beaten with police batons. The coroner's report concluded that Jones, who weighed 342 pounds, died of a "stress reaction" to the beating, but said that the reaction was aggravated by high blood pressure, an enlarged heart and cocaine, PCP and methanol use. Although Ohio prosecutors March 22, 2004, said they would not file charges against the police officers, Jones's family filed a lawsuit against the police department on September 10, claiming that the police had violated his constitutional rights. [See 2003 Facts On File: Law Enforcement: FBI Disciplinary Record Faulted...Other News; 2004 Crime: News in Brief, Crime: News in Brief]
• The family of Amadou Diallo, a Guinean immigrant who had been shot and killed by police in 1999, accepted a $3 million settlement from New York City on January 6, 2004. The family had filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the city after four officers mistook Diallo for a rape suspect and fired 41 bullets at him when he took out his wallet. The officers had claimed they thought his wallet was a gun. [See 2004 Facts On File: Crime: News in Brief]
• On June 19, 2004, a Los Angeles police officer was caught on tape beating a black man in the head with a metal flashlight. The suspect, who had apparently surrendered to the officer, was wanted for a vehicle theft. On June 30, another video emerged showing another police suspect being beaten with a flashlight. The videos were considered reminiscent of the 1991 beating that had sparked race riots in the city. [See 2004 Facts On File: Crime: News in Brief ]
• On November 9, 2006, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) initiated a probe into the beating caught on tape of a 24-year-old suspect by two Los Angeles Police Department officers. The video showed an officer punching the suspect several times in the head. Both officers were reassigned to desk jobs. [See 2006 Facts On File: Crime: Violent Crime Rose in 1st Half of 2006...Other News]
• On November 25, 2006, five undercover New York City police officers killed Sean Bell, 23, while firing on a group of unarmed men in the borough of Queens. The police later said they thought the men had guns. The incident took place the night before Bell's wedding, while Bell—who was black—and his friends were out celebrating. The shooting sparked racial tensions in the city. On April 25, the New York State Supreme Court acquitted three of the officers. Civil rights leader Reverend Al Sharpton led a protest through the Harlem section of the borough of Manhattan the day after the acquittal. [See 2006 Facts On File: Crime: Violent Crime Rose in 1st Half of 2006--Other News; 2008 Crime: NYPD Officers Acquitted in Shooting]
• A news helicopter videotaped at least a dozen police officers beating three criminal suspects on May 5, 2008, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The city's police chief, Charles Ramsey, announced on May 7 that six officers had been reassigned to administrative work, and that Philadelphia's police force had been under "stress" after one of its officers was killed on May 3 in a separate incident. On May 19, Ramsey announced that four of the police officers involved in the incident had been fired, three had been suspended and eight would undergo additional training. [See 2008 Facts On File: Crime: News in Brief, Crime: Four Fired in Philadelphia Brutality Case]