RIGHT TO KNOW WHAT GIULIANI FINDS RELEVANT

It wasn't entirely clear at first why the mayor and the police commissioner
were kind enough to give the public all that information about Patrick M.
Dorismond, the latest unarmed black man killed by a police officer. But over
the weekend, the mayor enlightened us. "The public has a right to know," he
explained.
That was it. Concern about an informed citizenry. From Rudolph W. Giuliani,
whose administration so frequently withholds basic information from
journalists, civic groups and elected officials that resorting to lawsuits
has become routine.

What welcome news that the mayor now champions the free flow of
information.

Forgive the sarcasm, but a 26-year-old man was shot dead after angrily
rebuffing an undercover police officer's request for drugs. And ever
since, the mayor has been demeaning him, most recently on a Fox
television program yesterday, where he gave up any pretense of abiding
by his own admonition "not to jump to conclusions."

Mr. Giuliani even said that he authorized Commissioner Howard Safir to
reveal Mr. Dorismond's record -- confirming that he makes command
police decisions.

In his harshest description yet of Mr. Dorismond's record, the mayor
told the Fox reporters: "He has been arrested for robbery, attempted
robbery, possession of a gun. He's been arrested several times for
drugs. And in at least one incident, possibly more, when dealing with
a drug situation, he beats people up."

Mr. Giuliani also said, "All the facts should be known."

The facts then, from law enforcement officials: Mr. Dorismond was
arrested three times, first in 1987, when 13, for what Mr. Safir said
was robbery and assault. But because the charges were dropped and the
record sealed, that cannot be confirmed.

In 1993, Mr. Dorismond was arrested for assault for punching a friend
who shortchanged him $10 on a marijuana purchase. He pleaded guilty to
disorderly conduct.

In January 1996, he was accused of pulling a gun on a driver and
threatening him. He was charged with menacing, harassment and criminal
weapons possession, but no gun was found. He again pleaded guilty to
disorderly conduct.

Based on the known facts, then, Mr. Dorismond committed no robbery,
was a marijuana user, not a dealer, threatened someone with a gun that
disappeared and punched a friend he caught cheating him.

He emerges as a man with a hot temper and a taste for marijuana -- not
admirable traits but not capital offenses either. Good thing because,
the F.B.I. says, one American is arrested on marijuana charges every
45 seconds -- mostly for possession.

HE larger question is whether his background is relevant to his
shooting in front of a Midtown Manhattan bar. "This incident has
nothing to do with whether this man was a low life or Park Avenue
surgeon," said Arnold Kriss, a former deputy commissioner of trials in
the Police Department. "The facts of this case have to be on the four
corners of what happened on that street."

According to contrasting accounts, either Mr. Dorismond attacked the
undercover officer after he was approached for drugs, or the officer
was the aggressor. Detective Anthony Vasquez, a backup, rushed in and,
his lawyer said, his gun went off when Mr. Dorismond lunged at him.
Other witnesses dispute that account.

Presumably, the district attorney, Robert M. Morgenthau, and a grand
jury will sort out the facts.

But Mr. Giuliani has already judged Mr. Dorismond's history relevant:
"People do act in conformity very often with their prior behavior."

Under that theory, then, here is Detective Vasquez's record, from
police authorities. He shot and injured a neighbor's dog in 1996,
worried it might hurt his son. The next year, he was arrested for
drawing his service weapon during a bar fight in Pennsylvania; he was
docked a day's vacation. Later that year, his wife accused him of
domestic abuse, then dropped the complaint.

Those incidents may be relevant to the shooting. Or they may not be.
The same for the Dorismond record.

Nobody can be sure at this point, but that has not stopped the mayor
from calling Mr. Vasquez "a distinguished undercover officer" and
repeating exaggerations of Mr. Dorismond's record.

It is a convenient tactic. It shifts attention away from a fatal
police shooting and serious questions about undercover techniques and
unofficial arrest quotas, and squarely on the lumpy life of the victim.

"At least take a neutral viewpoint," Mr. Giuliani admonished this
weekend. He said, too: "It would seem like real hypocrisy to close off
half the facts."

When the man's right, he's right.