HUMAN-RIGHTS GROUP LASHES OUT AT 'WIDESPREAD' POLICE BRUTALITY

Most U.S. Officers Accused Of Abuses Go Unpunished, Amnesty
Says

Washington -- Police brutality, especially against members of racial
and ethnic minorities, remains "persistent and widespread" across the
United States, Amnesty International said yesterday.

Some cases -- like that of Amadou Diallo, the unarmed and homeless
West African immigrant who died in a fusillade of 41 shots fired by
New York police officers -- garner the media spotlight and have
prompted President Bill Clinton and others to promise a crackdown.

But Amnesty said most police officers accused of abuses go unpunished
and many instances of brutality go unreported.

As yet another police brutality scandal rocked Los Angeles this week,
involving accusations that officers shot and killed a handcuffed
suspect while their superiors conspired in a cover-up, the Amnesty
report said it was the little-known cases that often reflect
unacceptable and illegal patterns of abuse.

For instance, Amnesty said that it has documented "at least 70 people"
who died after being subjected to so-called pepper spray "during
arrest or while in custody."

Although Amnesty concedes that there is no evidence directly linking
pepper spray, which can cause gagging and choking and temporarily
paralyze the larynx, with the deaths, the human-rights group said that
the use of the spray was often associated with other forms of brutality.

The use of hog-tying, known in police circles as Total Appendage
Restraint Procedure, remains widespread although police in New York
and Los Angeles have banned it. Along with other abnormal holds,
including officers kneeling or standing on suspects' chests, it is
linked to many deaths and injuries from "positional asphyxia."

Some of the incidents cited by Amnesty are horrific.

Lewis Rivera, a homeless man eating in a Miami shopping mall, was
chased by half a dozen police officers last May. They sprayed him with
pepper spray, kicked him, bound his hands and feet and then dragged
him to a police car. He died within the hour in a police cell, the
second homeless person to die in Miami police custody this year.

In Kansas City last November, a 13-year-old black child was killed
when four police officers opened fire after surrounding the pickup
truck he was driving. All were cleared of criminal wrongdoing although
a civil suit is pending.

In February this year, a suicidal Los Angeles man, Ricardo Clos, died
after being shot 38 times by Los Angeles police officers who responded
to a call from the man's wife, who said he had cut himself in the
neck. When police arrived, Mr. Clos threw the knife at them but missed.

Amnesty said a disproportionate number of homeless and mentally ill
individuals, as well as members of racial and ethnic minorities, are
victims of police abuse and brutality ranging from verbal epithets to
unwarranted searches to beatings and killings.

There is no national reporting system, and police guidelines and
oversight vary from state to state and municipality to municipality.
The Clinton administration has only recently reacted to minorities'
growing anger about their treatment by police.

"The issue is national in scope," Attorney-General Janet Reno admitted
last April. "For too many people, especially in minority communities,
the trust that is so essential to effective policing does not exist
because [they] believe that police have used excessive force, that law
enforcement is too aggressive, that law enforcement is biased,
disrespectful and unfair."

Amnesty lauded Washington for vowing to tackle the problem and said
that prosecutions against police for brutality, as well as corruption,
are on the rise. Last year "the Justice Department is reported to have
filed criminal charges against 74 officers for excessive force, . . .
a 12-year-high."

However, Amnesty said, "this still represents only a small proportion
of the thousands of complaints of brutality" levelled each year. Many
victims are believed to be too frightened to even file complaints.

"Some say police misconduct is an inevitable byproduct of the
crackdown on crime," President Clinton said in June. "I don't believe
that's so; we don't have to choose between keeping safe and treating
people right; . . . we can do both."

Central to the problem is the lack of any national requirement that
police forces even gather data or report on shootings, injuries and
deaths in custody or other uses of force.

In Los Angeles, where police brutality and corruption have been a
recurring civic theme for decades, Mayor Richard Riordan vowed
yesterday to "get to the bottom" of the latest allegations. At the
same time, he begged Angelinos "not to let a few evil officers ruin
the reputation of the entire force."