ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER ATROCITY.

This time the gun-waving storm troopers from the Police Department smashed
in the door and invaded the apartment of a quiet and law-abiding family in
the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. The cops, in riot-type gear, set off
a stun grenade, which gives the impression that the apartment is being
bombed, and then handcuffed everybody, including a petrified mentally
retarded teen-aged girl who was pulled naked from a bathtub. As the family
members trembled and wept, the cops began their search, rummaging arrogantly
through the most personal of items.

They claimed, in this home of a retired baker, to be looking for drugs and
guns. None were found. "I ran to the bedroom when they came in," said
Cecelia Shorter. "They came after me and they handcuffed me."

Mrs. Shorter said she was afraid her daughter Phebi, who is 18, would
misunderstand the orders being given by the police. "I was screaming,
'Please don't shoot!

Please don't shoot!

She's mentally retarded!' " Within minutes the entire family was
handcuffed -- Mrs. Shorter, who is 47, her husband, Basil, 62, Phebi and
Phebi's 14-year-old sister, Isis. "I cannot describe to you how bad I felt
seeing my two daughters handcuffed," said Mrs. Shorter.

"I felt helpless," said Basil Shorter. The sudden fear that sweeps over an
innocent family whose home is invaded by the police is mixed with the sense
of rage that results from being so profoundly humiliated. You have no choice
but to keep your mouth shut. The fear, as reasonable as it is real, is that
you will be shot to death if you say the wrong thing.

Neither the Mayor nor the Police Commissioner believe these raids on the
homes of the innocent are a problem.

If they were occurring in wealthy, white neighborhoods, that would be
different.

They would end. But they happen only in poor black and brown neighborhoods.
And the administration of Rudolph W. Giuliani has made it clear in one
policy after another that it is no friend of the people in those
neighborhoods. Police Commissioner Howard Safir said the raid on the
Shorters' apartment was not a mistake, which leaves the inference that they
were drug dealers and that drugs just happened not to have been found during
the raid. That is a lousy inference to leave.

There is no evidence whatsoever -- none -- that the Shorters were involved
in drugs or any other illegal activity. "Any kind of checking would have let
the police know this was not a place they should be breaking into," said
Harvey Weitz, a lawyer who is planning to sue the city on behalf of the
Shorters.

"How many times are good people going to have to go through this?" he asked.
He noted that the invasion of the Shorters' apartment is the fourth bad
police raid to come to the public's attention since late February. In each
case the apartment dwellers were traumatized and their belongings trashed,
but the police came away with nothing.

The legal action is "less about money than it is about trying to wake people
up," said Mr. Weitz. "The police need to find out what it is in their
procedures that allows them to make these mistakes." He added: "If you do
make a mistake, fine. Issue an apology.

Tell the people, 'I'm sorry.

We're wrong.

You did nothing wrong.

You're a perfectly decent, respectable family.' Make it clear that there was
no basis for the raid in the first place.

Nothing like that has been done." No one in the Shorter family has ever been
in trouble with the law. Basil Shorter, who described himself on Friday as
"very depressed," wanted to get that point across to the police officers who
were mistreating his family.

He mentioned it when it had become clear that no drugs or guns would be
found. "I told one of the officers that I was a law-abiding man," he said.
The officer, noticing a Caribbean accent, asked where Mr. Shorter was from.
Mr. Shorter replied that he had been born in Jamaica, but that he was an
American now. He said the officer told him: "Jamaica sucks.

The Jamaican people suck. This is America and if you don't like it, go back
to [expletive] Jamaica."


Checked-by: "Rolf Ernst"