A TRIAL FOR CITY POLICE

Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City and Police Commissioner
Raymond Kelly have a right to brag about lower crime rates in the
city. But they still have work to do when it comes to the behavior of
some police officers.

The case of Michael Mineo, who says an officer jabbed him in the
buttocks with his baton, is a warning about how easy it can be for a
police force to slip back into old, dangerous patterns.

Three police officers are on trial now in State Supreme Court in
Brooklyn after Mr. Mineo was arrested in a subway station in October
2008. The case stirs reminders of the horrendous treatment of Abner
Louima, who in 1997 was sodomized with a stick by a police officer.
The three officers are accused of failing to report the arrest
correctly and warning Mr. Mineo not to go to the hospital or to
police to complain.

Since the Louima case, police recruits have been given extra warnings
about the excessive use of force. However, complaints about the use
of force registered with the Civilian Complaint Review Board have
gone up dramatically. It is time for Commissioner Kelly to take a
harder look behind his crime statistics and the board's reviews.
Rising complaints among blacks and Hispanics suggest that he also
needs to reassess the use of stop-and-frisk operations in minority areas.

In the Mineo case, the original police report gave no hint of the
accusations now before the court. The officers gave Mr. Mineo a
disorderly conduct summons with an invalid date, which he could
expect to be dismissed. The details might not have come out except
that friends took him for treatment and hospital staff members
reported Mr. Mineo's injuries and complaints to the police.

Officer Kevin Maloney, who testified that he saw Officer Richard Kern
push his baton into Mr. Mineo's buttocks, delayed giving his version
of events. Officer Kern is charged with aggravated sexual abuse.
Officers Alex Cruz and Andrew Morales are accused of helping cover up
Officer Kern's actions. A newcomer who hesitated for days to break
the wall of police silence, Officer Maloney came forward when the
charges seemed to focus on Officer Cruz instead of Officer Kern.

The jury will determine whether these three are guilty. In the
meantime, Commissioner Kelly and the mayor should remind police
officers that their good work can only be tainted by the kind of
rough behavior once dismissed as an unavoidable byproduct of fighting crime.