SORRY POLICE STORY

A federal grand jury has essentially repeated some of the allegations
against a pair of Schenectady patrolmen that surfaced last summer, and while
the charges are of unquestionably grave concern to the city and its
residents, they are still only charges. Unfortunately, worse news may be yet
to come.

The allegations against Patrolmen Michael Siler and Richard Barnett are
serious, to be sure: Shaking down a drug dealer, then taking his stash to
resell for personal enrichment is pretty sinister behavior for people whose
job is to uphold the law. If the charges are proved - and, frankly, it's
hard to believe a grand jury would have made them unless the evidence was
pretty strong - the officers should be sent to prison for a long time.

But as serious as these charges may be, they don't address the larger cloud
hanging over the city's and police department's head - of systemic civil
rights violations, racially motivated harassment and brutality alleged by
some members of the community last summer, and also of witness intimidation
tactics alleged by U.S. officials once the grand jury was convened.

Last summer's claim by David Sampson - the 28-year-old black man who says he
was corralled by Siler and Barnett, then driven out to a remote section of
Glenville and left without his shoes - was the most serious, but not the
only one, of those allegations, and the grand jury has so far failed to even
mention it.

Granted, these kinds of charges fall into a gray area; they often involve
subjective things like intent and require the establishment of patterns of
behavior; thus they are more difficult to prove than an isolated, hard-fact
crime like the ones Siler and Barnett have been charged with. But they have
been part of the still-ongoing FBI and grand jury investigations, and
authorities indicate that more indictments may be forthcoming - and not just
against Siler and Barnett. One way or the other, this issue needs to be
resolved.

In the meantime, the police union's belligerent reaction to the indictments
and witness intimidation charges - expressed by Lt. Robert Hamilton - wasn't
very heartening. By blindly defending Barnett and Siler, denouncing the
process and intimating that other cops might hold back from doing their
jobs, Hamilton has sent a message that he and his fellow officers don't take
the charges very seriously, or that they think they are above the law.

Their attitude needs to change, and it's up to police brass - starting with
Chief Gregory Kaczmarek - to make sure that it does. He needs to send the
message strongly and quickly, and to take action against any officer who
doesn't get it.

It was pretty humiliating for the city to have to call in state police last
fall when arrests faltered - and gang-related crime rose - in the wake of
the Sampson scandal. But if that kind of problem occurs again, Mayor
Jurczynski shouldn't waste any time in picking up the telephone.