NYPD FIRED BLACK COP IN RETALIATION FOR HER RACIAL-PROFILING CHARGES,
JUDGE RULES

NEW YORK -- Former New York City Police Commissioner Howard Safir illegally
retaliated against a black officer who publicly charged the NYPD with
practicing racial profiling by firing her, a federal judge ruled Monday.

Manhattan Federal Judge Alvin Hellerstein said the police department's
argument that officer Yvette Walton was fired last year for abusing
sick-leave privileges wasn't credible.

Hellerstein said Safir avoided the ``cleansing light'' of an administrative
trial by ordering Walton fired after she slammed the department at a city
council meeting last year, two months after the fatal shooting of Amadou
Diallo.

``I find that Walton's dismissal was in retaliation for the exercise of her
First Amendment rights,'' Hellerstein wrote in his decision.

City attorneys said they planned an appeal as Walton's attorney, Norman
Siegel of the New York Civil Liberties Union, hailed Hellerstein's decision.

``We hope that this ruling will encourage members of the NYPD and other
city agencies to speak freely about their concerns about city government,''
Siegel said.

Walton, a former member of the street-crime unit, is expected to ask for
her job back, as well as monetary damages, at a Dec. 15 hearing.

She was fired in April 1999, a week after she donned a hood and testified
before the city council that the unit engaged in racial profiling.

Walton spoke out two months after four street-crime unit cops fatally shot
the unarmed Diallo in a hail of 41 bullets in the vestibule of his Bronx home.