From: niepornt@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (David Marc Nieporent)
Subject: Re: Say it ain't so
Originator: news@nimaster
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 10:22:47 GMT

In<1992Nov6.171416.16625@bony1.bony.com> jake@bony1.bony.com (Jake Livni) rants:
>In article <1992Nov4.080110.13323@Princeton.EDU> niepornt@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (David Marc Nieporent) writes:

>>That wasn't what I heard about this case.  Any of it.

>Let's see...

>>The jury simply didn't believe what the police said.  (For those of you
>>who aren't aware of NY politics, the police do NOT have much credibility
>>right now.  The fact that they were rioting last month, busy shouting
>>racist slurs at the mayor, over the idea of civilian oversight of the 
>>police department probably doesn't help.)

>For those of you who are not aware of NYC politics right now, Mayor
>Dinkins doesn't have much credibility among white New Yorkers, nor
>with the Police Department.  The noisy police demonstration a month

"Noisy demonstration" is one way of putting it. An interesting way, to
be sure.  But when hundreds of policemen go around rioting, blocking
traffic, yelling racial epithets at the mayor and anyone else who comes
nearby, it comes a lot closer to a riot.  

And they were rioting over the idea of civilian oversight.

>ago followed the shooting death of a drug dealer by a policeman, after
>which the Mayor rushed to the drug dealer's family to comfort their
>loss, while criticizing the police.  Mayor Dinkins is making the

Yes, thereby preventing a riot, at a time when his background wasn't
known.  And the fact that he was a drug dealer really doesn't make the 
shooting more justified, unless he was threatening the policeman, 
something which hasn't been shown.  

>already difficult job of law enforcement in NYC even more difficult.  

Well, I don't think that's either the police or Dinkins' fault.  I think
it's the WOD which is at fault there.  But anyway, while Dinkins doesn't
have credibility with the police, I don't think he doesn't have credibility 
with most whites in NY.

If the police didn't go around killing people under suspicious
circumstances, they'd have a lot more credibility (and I'm not just
talking about the above case; there were several others.)

>>The police said they found the murder weapon, which was bloodied with
>>the victim's blood, in Nelson's pocket.  But Nelson's clothes had NO
>>blood on them.  (Police have been known to plant evidence on occasion,
>>you know.)

>I don't trust the police for everything, either, but that doesn't
>automatically mean that they can never tell the truth.  Juries are
>being prodded by the words and actions of Mayor Dinkins to distrust
>the police mightily.  I don't think that there is anything the police
>said in this case which was accepted by the jury; they discarded all
>the evidence in court.

Well, that was because there were other contradictions in the testimony.
One policeman testified that he chased Nelson by himself, while a second
policeman testified that both of them chased Nelson.

If they can't even get their own stories straight, you'd expect the jury
to find it hard to believe them.

And that's the point.  The police's statements contradicted the evidence
they had.  *That's* why they weren't believed.  You ignored the part
about the blood.

>>The victim identified the guy based mostly on his red shirt.  But there
>>were several other people who testified they were also wearing red shirts.

>This is incorrect.  Yankel Rosenbaum had probably never met Lemrick
>Nelson until a few minutes earlier.  It's no wonder, then, that
>Rosenbaum didn't call out "That's him!  Lemrick Nelson!" but instead
>identified the one in the red shirt.  This does not appear to be the
>only means of recognition by the victim, but merely a means of
>pointing him out.  Witnesses scanning a police line-up would say the
>same thing.  

Yes, but this *wasn't* a lineup.  If it had, the testimony would have
been more believable.  Rosenbaum was lying there dying and they brought 
Nelson up to him.  The facts aren't clear as to whether they showed
the knife before or after Rosenbaum identified Nelson.  The jury thought
from the testimony that they showed the knife first, which would
obviously prejudice Rosenbaum towards identifying this guy.  Anyway,
Rosenbaum was lying there dying and they brought a guy in a red shirt up
to him -- how good his identification likely to be?

>>The police CLAIMED he confessed at the police station.  But there was no
>>written or taped confession anywhere.  And he denied that he did.

>In last Sunday's rally, former Mayor Ed Koch reminded us that we have
>an adversarial justice system.  Both lawyers are trying to win the
>case; the pursuit of justice is not really the issue with lawyers.

Well, I'm not going to touch *that* claim.  (Have you been talking to
Barry Shein lately?)

>Thus, when Nelson's lawyer found out that there was no record of the
>alleged confession, he most likely would have instructed his client to
>deny making it.  It worked.  It often does.

So?  This is certainly true that his lawyer *could* have told Nelson to
deny it; it's also irrelevant.  It's up to the police to prove that they
have a confession, not up to Nelson to prove they don't.

And saying "No, really.  Trust us.  He confessed," isn't really the way
to do it.

>>>A judge told me this week that he knew the outcome long ago, that
>>>"there isn't a jury in Brooklyn that would convict this guy".  The
>>>jury didn't suffer doubt.  They suffered prejudiced blindness.

>>Or the police did, which is the other possibility.  Many people felt
>>that the cops needed someone to arrest quickly to quiet down the Jewish
>>community, so they just picked Nelson and creatively fit the evidence to
>>him.

>Nelson was nabbed within minutes of the stabbing.  This was only hours
>after Gavin Cato's death in a car accident.  Rosenbaum, who was in the
>library that day, didn't even know about the car accident.  The only
>people rioting at that time (or afterwards, for that matter) were
>Blacks from that neighborhood and from other neighborhoods.

>Thus, there was no need to "quiet down the Jewish community" because
>the Jewish community was not being violent.  Nelson was picked up and
>idnetified by Yankel Rosenbaum even before he was taken away by
>ambulance; he died a few hours later.

Not quiet them down in a rioting sense; perhaps that was a poor choice
of words. I meant quiet them politically.

>Your charge that Nelson was arrested to appease the Jewish community
>is based on invented facts.  What is your agenda?

Really?  I don't have one.  I'd like to graduate.  Maybe get a job.
Get elected President.  Help end the WarOnCivilLiberties, otherwise 
known as the War on Drugs.  

What's yours?  Why are you so convinced that Nelson did this, when you
haven't even seen all the evidence?

>What's more, Mayor Dinkins and his Chief of Police at the time, Lee
>Brown, instructed the police to allow the mob in Crown Heights to
>"vent their rage" for 72 hours.  While Jews in Crown Heights huddled
>inside, a riot outside continued as people looted stores and ran
>through the streets.

This isn't necessarily true.  Dinkins and Brown deny this.  Where do you
get your information?  They claim the rioting happened too fast for them 
to respond to, and that by the time they were ready to respond, they
were afraid of making matters worse.

>To add even more insult to injury, Nelson was the only one of the mob
>of about 20 that was arrested.  By comparison, when a Black person is
>attacked by a white mob, everyone in the mob is arrested and charged.
>Why hasn't the Black community been urged to "give up" the others, as
>white communities have been urged in similar circumstances?  The
>miscarriage of justice in this case is stunning.

-- 
David M. Nieporent   | Mike Mussina 1992 AL Cy Young Winner
niepornt@phoenix.    |------------------------------------ 
   princeton.edu     | "I still believe in a place called Hope."
Clinton/Gore '92.  Don't stop thinking about tomorrow.