Following UP

TRYING TO LEAVE TORTURE IN THE PAST

First, the prisoners were stunned in a police station. Then citizens were
stunned to learn what had happened to the prisoners.

In recent years, the name associated with torture at the hands of New York
City police officers has been that of Abner Louima, who was sodomized with
a broken broomstick at a Brooklyn station in 1997.

Back in 1985, the victim in the headlines was Mark Davidson. He was one of
four suspects in minor drug cases -- and the first to complain publicly --
who prosecutors said had been repeatedly and agonizingly shocked with an
electric stun gun by officers trying to force confessions at the 106th
Precinct station in Queens.

Mr. Davidson, then 18 and in high school, was assaulted with the device
after being arrested on a charge of selling $10 worth of marijuana. He
denied the charge, and received at least 25 jolts that left burn marks on
his back, abdomen and buttocks.

Five top police commanders were forced to retire, and a sergeant and two
officers served up to three years in prison for the electrical assaults.
The charge against Mr. Davidson, who had never been arrested before, was
dismissed, and he later received $450,000 to settle his suit against the city.

"I don't think about it," Mr. Davidson, now 35, said last week. "That's my
past."

His present is as a teacher of seventh and eighth graders at a Brooklyn
school, and he said he recently completed courses for a master's degree in
his specialty, physical education.

The burn scars "lightened up and eventually went away," he said, and he
almost never has occasion to speak about his torture. Nobody asks about it
"because nobody remembers," he said. If a student asked him what to do if
assaulted by police officers, he would advise, he said: "Do what I did.
Report it."

When Mr. Davidson did that, he was guided by a lawyer, Marvyn M. Kornberg,
who helped fuel the headlines by publicly denouncing the officers. More
recently, Mr. Kornberg represented the officer who was Mr. Louima's main
torturer.

"I'm a defense lawyer," Mr. Kornberg said last week. "I defend people
whatever the crime."