CORRUPTION ALLEGATIONS AGAINST COPS EXPOSE
WEAKNESSES IN SYSTEM

BUFFALO, N.Y. - One of four decorated city narcotics cops
recently arraigned in federal court for corruption had been removed
from the drug squad seven years ago because of FBI reports he was
shaking down dealers, a newspaper reports.

At the time, the FBI tipped the police commissioner that Darnyl
Parker, a decorated detective who warned schoolchildren about the
evils of drugs, had set up a drug operation for his twin brother, The
Buffalo News said in Sunday's editions. The FBI said it also believed
Parker was passing confidential police information to dealers and
stealing money from them.

Now, one of the allegations against Parker, 40, is that he helped his
21-year-old son start a cocaine business.

Parker's arrest raises questions about the powers of the police union
and the department's program for investigating complaints about officers.

"It's so sad," said a teacher from School 81, where Parker once took
his anti-drug message. "He's handsome, well-spoken and was a wonderful
role model for the kids."

In 1993, when the FBI tipped then-police commissioner Richard Donovan
about Parker, he immediately removed him from a federal drug task
force and transferred him out of the narcotics squad.

But the Police Benevolent Association, a union, claiming Donovan had
no right to discipline Parker without formally charging him, demanded
he be given his job back.

An arbitrator ordered Parker returned to narcotics. The city also had
to pay Parker $18,438 in retroactive overtime.

Parker was charged two weeks ago with taking bribes from a drug
dealer, passing on information about police raids, investing in deals
and stealing seized drugs.

The FBI alleges that the drugs recently went not to his brother but to
Parker's son, William, to set him up in the drug business. He was
charged as well.

Parker is also accused of leading a rogue band of three other Buffalo
narcotics detectives in stealing more than $36,000 from an FBI agent
posing as a Jamaican drug dealer. Parker and fellow detectives John
Ferby, Robert E. Hill and David Rodriguez also are accused of staging
a phony drug raid. They were caught on videotape looking for cash and
narcotics in a drug house set up by the FBI with hidden cameras and
sound equipment.

FBI officials say they stumbled onto Parker again when they questioned
a drug dealer last year who had grown up with Parker.

The dealer said that in early 1998 he began paying Parker $4,000 a
month for protection and confidential police information. The
arrangement called for Parker to provide the names of police informers
and undercover officers, and to alert the dealer about investigations
around his operation.

Scandals in police narcotics units are not limited to Buffalo. In the
past three years alone, major cases have been brought against
narcotics agents in Chicago, Los Angeles and Cleveland.

Buffalo has experienced three narcotics scandals in the past 30 years,
including one in 1990 which put seven patrol officers in federal prison.

But police officials say the city may be worse-equipped to deal with
the problem than elsewhere.

Police Commissioner Rocco J. Diina said Parker's earlier grievance
exposed a weakness in the department's ability to put officers where
they're best suited.

There is no provision, short of formally charging a detective with
misconduct or a crime, for removing a detective from the unit.

Lt. Robert Meegan, president of the Police Benevolent Association,
said the union did the right thing in the Parker case. He noted that
Parker was never charged criminally, based on the 1993 allegations. In
fact, Meegan said, the department never even conducted a formal
investigation into the claims.

Rosa Gibson, an activist for four decades on Buffalo's East Side, is
not optimistic that the latest investigation will have a lasting effect.

"Right now it's in the headlines," she said. "Three months from now,
everyone will forget about it, and it will be happening all over
again. The authorities will just forget about it. But the people who
live in the neighborhoods where the bullets are flying - we won't
forget about it."