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isra Report details hours . before Louima beating Bv TOM HAYS THE ASSOCIATED PRESS NEW YORK - The midnight shift on Aug. 9, 1997, in Brooklyn's 70th Precinct began on a deceptively gentle note. An FBI report says police officers Justin Volpe and Thomas Bruder took dn extra passenger in their patrol car - a "little black puppy with big-floppy ears." The unofficial mascot was still with the cops hours later when they became involved in one of the most explosive brutality cases in city history. The report is one of two illuminating court documents released before the long-awaited trial four officers accused of viciously attacking Abner Louima, a Haitian immigrant arrested in a melee outside a Brooklyn nightclub. Jury selection is set to begin .March 29 in Brooklyn federal court. Volpe. 26: Bruder, 32; Charles Schwarz, 33, and Thomas Wiese, 35, allegedly beat Louima as he was taken to a precinct station house. Authorities charge Volpe and Schwarz resumed the assault in. the station house bathroom, with Schwarz holding down a hand cuffed Louima as Volpe shoved a still-missing stick - possibly a mop handle ijUo his rectum and mouth. The allegations ignited protests - accusing police of singling out minorities for abuse and tarnished a dramatic drop in crime tout ed by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. A multimillion-dollar lawsuit,Tiled on Louima's behalf by O.J. Simpson defender Johnnie Cochran Jr., accused the city and police union of shielding rogue cops behind a . "blue wall of silence." "We are in a war for our lives," Louima told his supporters after being hospitalized with a ruptured bladder and colon. Aside from denying the charges through their attorneys, the accused officers have remained mostly silent. But two court papers unsealed late last year by U.S. District Judge Eugene Nickerson combine to provide a detailed defense version of the incident. The documents are based on statements Bruder and Wiese made in l?ite 1997 while trying to avoid federal indictments. One is a sum mary of an FBI interview with Bruder; the other is a transcript of notes from a meeting in which Wiese's lawyer shared his client's ver sion of events with Louima's attorneys. The papers address motives and personalities. Wiese indicates Louima may have been mistaken for another man who enraged Volpe with a sucker punch. Bruder characterizes his co-defendants: Volpe is an "arguer. a character, a comedian," Schwarz is "quiet ... and just wants to do his job." and Wiese is "low key, not excitable, a really good cop." Also, .the prosecution account is contradicted: Neither cop says Schwarz entered the bathroom. Both avoid incriminating themselves while casting Volpe as the main culprit. - The Louima incident, according to what the officers said in late 1997, unfolded this way; - On the Saturday of the alleged attack, Bruder teamed with Volpe because his regular partner was off. A slow shift was interrupted by a "10-85" - a radio call for officers to respond to a dispute outside Club Rendezvous on Flatbush Avenue. Bruder heard someone yell, "It's a lesbian fight!" as the .officers arrived. An unruly crowd of about 100 people had gathered around a pair of brawling women. More chaos followed as the four officers tried to disperse the crowd. At one point, Volpe got into what Bruder called a "school yard fight" With a man in a black vest with no shirt. The man hit Volpe in the head before fleeing on foot. About the same time. Wiese found Schwarz arresting another man later iden tified as Louima for disorderly conduct. The pair put Louima in their car and drove him a short distance from the crowd. Wiese briefly left the car and returned to find Schwarz beating? Louima in the back seat. Schwarz made a vague remark about Louima trying to kick out the car window. Minutes later, a scrgehnt passing in another car told the officers their prisoner may have been the man who fought Volpe. Wiese radioed Volpe and Bruder that he was "holding one." "Yeah, that's the guy," Volpe said wheh he drove up and looked at the prisoner in the back seat. ? To Wiese, it seemed Volpe mistook Louima for the man who hit him because Louima also was shirtless with a black vest. Both Wiese and Bruder noticed Volpe was angry so angry that Wiese refused to let him take the suspect to the station house out of fear for Louima's safety. While Louima was being booked back at the station, Volpe, his head still ringing from the blow, demanded he get credit for the "col lar." , . From there, the two accounts diverge. Wiese saw Volpe lead Louima into the station jiouse's first-floor# men's room . Hearing a banging noise, Wiese peered inside to see Louima lying face-down on the ground, his pants down around his ankles, covered with his own waste. Volpe was standing over him with a-waste-covered stitk "He defecated on himself," Volpe said. Wiese then described Volpe trying to put the stick, in Louima's mouth. Shocked, to the point of disbelief and unsure how to react, Wiese insisted they take the prisoner to a holding cell. Bruder. too. saw Volpe take Louima into the bathroom. He also noticed Wiese and the black puppy just outside the door. But he did n't sense a problem until Volpe emerged from the bathroom and told him. referring to Louima, "I whacked him in the aSs with a mop handle." Later. Bruder found Louima kneeling in a holding cell, still handcuffed. His pants were unzipped. As the officer uncuffed him, Louima said he needed help Bruder thought Louima might be high on crack or drunk, but he called an ambulance. The next day, Wiese called Bruder with sobering news: Internal affairs, he said, wanted to talk to them. i Goler Memorial ANE Zion Church 630 Patterson Avenue ? Wrist on-Salem, IMC 27101 ^ Barbecue by: | "ZiT | D?rrlck Williams . *6'?? ! Friday & Saturday, March 26, 27, 1999 ? SaitMcv* Potato J ' ... J Salad Bakto Sear* | 11 00 AM ? Until ! Slaw and ?o? J Sponsored by Capital Campaign Ministry i. J Diallo killing sparks movement in New York By DONNA DE LA CRUZ THE ASSOCIATED PRESS NEW YORK - One sign held aloft at a demonstration against the shooting death of Amadou Diailo read "41 bullets, 41 million protests" Leaders of the black and Hispanic communities have taken that sign as a guide. Since four white police officers fired 41 bullets at Diailo on Feb. 4, killing the unarmed black man in the vestibule of his Bronx home, the activists have organized almost daily rallies. Most draw hundreds of people, others thousands So far, the rallies - mainly attended by minorities - have pointed up charges of racism by New York's police. But some activists see the protests spurring a broader civil rights movement in a city where the races are divided by great disparities in income and quality of neighborhoods "Our town is a segregated town, our schools are segregated, our housing is segregated, our movies and restaurants are segre gated," Norman Siegel, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, told one City Hall rally last week. "How ironic it is that 33 years ago I went to the South and took part in a historic civil rights movement Mississippi summer "64," Sieggl said. "Perhaps we need New York City summer, '99." Ron Daniels, a veteran activist and executive director of the Cen ter for Constitutional Rights, also points to similarities between the '60s civil rights movement and the Diailo rallies. "The local authorities here hav^been compared with the local authorities then in the South," Daniels said. "And the federal gov ernment is being asked to step in, as they were asked to step in then." Leading activist the Rev. A1 Sharpton sought to draw the par allel with the '60s by urging "Mar tin Luther King-like tactics" - civil disobedience and other peaceful, yet powerful protests. And a fre quent speaker at the rallies has been 70-year-old Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker, once King's chief of staff. Diallo's shooting has awakened the black community at the grass roots level, Daniels said, i "The Amadou Diailo police killing was so heinous, so outra geous, it struck a nerve," Daniels said. "What I'm seeing in ,New York right now is one of the most intense responses I've ever seen here - and you have to remember , it's winter time, and people are still coming out in weather with wind chills of minus 5 and 10 degrees." Daniels said he's pleased that the rallies have been attended not only by the usual activists but by people of high school and college age. He said he was moved when young people peacefully marched hundreds of blocks from a Wall Street rally to Sharpton's National Action Network in Harlem. "That was absolutely incredi ble," he said. "And the young peo ple are seeing that the ballot box is just as important as the rallies." At a one rally, hundreds of young adults filled out voter regis tration forms. "I never thought voting was important until now - young peo ple are the future of this country, and we have to get politicians who don't take us seriously ... out of office," said Stephanie Carroll, 18, as she filled out a form. Carroll, of Brooklyn, said her grandparents fought actively for civil rights, but her parents did not * - and she never felt an urge to speak up until now. "As a young black woman, the shooting of Amadou Diallo really got to me," she said. "If the cops can shoot an unarmed man with no criminal record, we're all in trouble. I want to make sure they don't do it again." City officials have denied the charges of police racism. The police say the officers fired because they believed Diallo, an immigrant from Guinea, was pulling a gun. But Daniels believes the rallies are forcing Mayor Rudolph Giu--, ? liani and other officials are to take seriously demands that the racial makeup of the police should better reflect the community. Last week, Police Commission er Howard Safir announced the department's largest-ever recruit ment drive, which is focused on city residents. Now, the 40,000-force is 67.4 percent white - only 43.4 percent of the city's population is white, according to police and 1990 Cen sus figures. Blacks make up 13.4 percent of the department - New York is 25.6 percent black. Hispan ics make up 17.4 percent of police - the city is 23.7 percent Hispanic. But some black leaders say changing the racial makeup of the department, and holding rallies will not solve the problem of police brutality. Roger Wareham, an attorney and black activist, has been hold ing forums to discuss forming a pedple's militia. Wareham says city,'state and federal officials have failed to stop police brutality, so new initiatives are. needed. , , "We will examine our constitu tional right to educate, organize , and mobilize our communities to See Now York on A11 Employment WW Fair '99 -r i * The fourth annual Employment Fair will be held on May 12 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the LJVM Coliseum Annex. The deadline for employer registration is April 12. Booth space is limited to 120 em ployers. For more information and space reservations, call Jennifer Pierre at (336) 727-2423. Photo by ThoAaaodeUdPraei/Ed Bailey i Former mayor David Dinkint, second from left. Rev. Al Sharpton, center left, U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., center right, and the Rev. Herbert Dougherty, link arms and go down on one knee to await police, in New York, Monday. They were protesting the death of Amadou Diallo, and unarmed African immigrant who was shot and killed by New York City police last month. Jackson takes on AIDS Minister decries infection rate By KAREN L SHAW ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER MIAMI - Using the call and response for which he is so famous, the Rev. Jesse Jackson on Monday urged-a conference on AIDS in the black community to use education and responsible behavior to decrease the spread of the disease. "Tn the end, it's not like AIDS is something that catches us by night ? reading the Bible somewhere," Jackson said during a luncheon speech. "It's about behav ior," he prompted about 300 luncheon guests to repeat. "And medical care, and research, and detec tion, and diet Jack ton au\j VAV,I It's about lifestyle. "If you know how to get AIDS" he said, "you know how not to get it." Nearly I,(XX) people attended the conference titled. "From the Back Burner to the Front: African Americans Respond to the AIDS Epidemic." Among them were people who were HIV-positive, members of the health-care community and about 50 ministers, many of whom were tested on site to determine whether they have HIV, the virus that caus es AIDS The participation of ministers, who must lead by example and not words, is key to combatting AIDS. Jackson said. And the participation of churches, which can either help .So Jockaon on A9 * ? I I I With FHA's new I I higher loan limits, I I you can buy your I dream home. I I m . . .? . ??? . ? * . ? ^ Since 1934 we've helped over 26 million Americans get into new j homes. And starting this year, HUD can help you get a home loon for ? lUujl \ UP $208,800. Be sure to check with your lender to find out what M\ ^ the FHA-insured loan limits are in your area. We can also help you I with any questions you might have. Just call 1-800-HUDSFFJAond ask for our free 100 Questions and Answers brochure. If II teH you how to get an FHA loan for as little as 3% down. How to choose the right I lender. How to prepare yourself for the homebuying process. And much more. In fact, if you're looking for a home, it's all Fjl 1 the information you need. ' j|
Winston-Salem Chronicle (Winston-Salem, N.C.)
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