Muncie Times, Muncie, Delaware County, 5 July 2007 — Page 44

Page 44 • The Muncie Times • July 5, 2007

cotinued from page 43 Kelly called the resulting work of a committee, “comprehensive” and “thoughtful recommendations to make police undercover operations safer, more effective, and better understood by the public, while improving recruitment, training, supervision, retention and accountability.” Since the November 2006 police killing of Sean Bell and the April 2007 police shooting of Fermin Arzu, like with countless other victims of police firearms, Sharpton has been a key figure in pushing for redress. He has just returned from Washington, D.C., with Nicole Paultre-Bell and Katherine Arzu (Fermin’s daughter), where he asked Congressman John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, to establish a special prosecutors unit within the Justice Department. “I have serious questions about who is going to do the alcohol test and who gets the test,” Sharpton said,. “If other police at the scene do the test and get the test, they could just change the result. What if that had happened in the Sean Bell case? “If there is not an outside element taking the

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test and processing the result, it doesn’t solve the problem. I still think that Assemblyman Keith Wright’s bill should have been made into law. If the recommendations are just adopted under Kelly’s administration that means when we get a new commissioner, all the recommendations could change.” In the wake of his son being killed by four NYPD street crimes cops in a hail of 41 b

ullets in February 1999, Saikou Diallo pushed forward a package of recommendations to be considered and passed in Albany. Assemblyman Wright (70th AD-Harlem) tried to pass the Amadou Diallo legislative package upstate, but it has languished for years. It included outlawing racial profiling and taking a look at the use of no-knock search warrants, post the death of

Alberta Spruill, and diversity training. “This is something we have been fighting for in communities of color since the Diallo murder. I have introduced legislation since 1999 doing just this, and eight years later, it seems that the NYPD has finally seen the light,” said Wright. “I think these new proposals are fantastic and could possibly begin the start of a new era of the NYPD,” he continued.

“While my legislation, A.786, calls for drug and alcohol testing for all police officers after they discharge their weapons in the line of duty, regardless of injury or death, this is a good start. “I am optimistic that with the current mood in Albany to end abuses by all forms of government, we will see some progress in the fight against police brutality.”

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