POLICING THE POLICE

The idea," said Mary Frances Berry, "is to do a responsible piece of work."

In other words, she is not interested in trashing the New York City Police
Department. She would like to get factual information about the extent to
which police officers brutalize or otherwise abuse civilians, and then
recommend ways to curb the misconduct.

So on May 26 the United States Commission on Civil Rights, which Ms. Berry
chairs and which has subpoena power, will hold a public hearing in New York
into allegations of misconduct by the police. The hearing will be part of a
wider inquiry by the commission into the way the Police Department conducts
its business and the impact that has on the community at large.

Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Police Commissioner Howard Safir will both be
expected to testify.

Ms. Berry said the commissioners were aware that it was sometimes difficult
to "balance" the tough work of crime-fighting and the need to exercise
restraint when it is appropriate. "We all want to be protected from abuse or
criminal behavior," she said. "But at the same time it is better for both
the police and for residents that the police are respected and that they
carry out their duties in a way that is not itself a source of abuse."

The demand that something be done about police misconduct in New York has
intensified since Amadou Diallo, an unarmed man with no criminal record, was
shot to death last month in a vestibule in the Bronx by four plainclothes
officers who fired a total of 41 shots.

The commission will not be trying to get to the bottom of the Diallo case,
Ms. Berry said, but rather will look at the overall picture of
police-community relations in New York. The allegations of misconduct have
run the gamut from killings that were not justified to the harassment of
thousands of innocent civilians on the streets.

"We want to see how many incidents the police have been involved in and the
kinds of complaints that have been made," Ms. Berry said.

The Commission on Civil Rights is a bipartisan fact-finding agency of the
Federal Government. "We are not asked to go out and investigate and punish
someone," Ms. Berry said. "What we get are complaints from people who feel
they have not been taken seriously by government agencies when they
originally complained. Our job is to be a watchdog over the enforcement by
government agencies of people's civil rights."

Ms. Berry said that as part of its inquiry the commission will request --
and subpoena, if necessary -- documents and other data from the city and the
Police Department. "We'll look at the regulations concerning the use of
deadly force, for example, and the whole issue of external regulation or
oversight of the department. We'd like information on the recruitment and
training of police. We'll look at the demographics in the city and the
qualifications required for police officer jobs, things like that."

The commission's findings and recommendations will be sent to the President
and Congress, and will be made public.

New York is one of a number of cities the commission is focusing on. It will
soon file a report on the Los Angeles Police and Sheriff's Departments and
will likely investigate police misconduct in Washington, D.C.

In the early-1980's the commission published a highly regarded report on
police misconduct across the nation that was titled "Who is Guarding the
Guardians?" Most of its recommendations are still germane.

Departments were urged to step up their recruitment of ethnic minorities and
women, to establish psychological testing programs to screen out candidates
predisposed to violence or racism, and to improve training in the use of
deadly force and its alternatives.

Ms. Berry said, "For almost 20 years now the debate about police and
citizens has emphasized crime prevention and punishment, which is all one
would expect when citizens are concerned about crime."

There was no room in the debate for a serious discussion of police
misconduct or violations of civil rights, she said. But now, with crime
rates falling, that may be changing. It may be possible now for the
complaints of many long years to finally get an honest hearing.