16993: (Lemieux:)Miami Herald: Abner Louima (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: JD Lemieux <lxhaiti@yahoo.com>

Posted on Mon, Oct. 20, 2003

Police brutality victim devotes life and money to Haiti
BY JACQUELINE CHARLES
Knight Ridder Newspapers

MIAMI - (KRT) - Television cop shows use his name as
universally recognized shorthand for police brutality. So
do the media.

It seems as if everyone knows the name: Abner Louima. And
those who don't at least know of the horrifying incident
that brought him national attention: being sodomized with a
broken broomstick inside a bathroom in Brooklyn's 70th
Precinct by a New York City police officer.

But few know the man who has been living quietly and
rebuilding his life in South Florida for the past two
years. He left New York to guard his privacy, protect his
family and, in some small way, return to a normal
existence.

"There is a time to heal," Louima says. "It's time to start
the healing process. It may be a long one for me."

During the most in-depth interview he has granted since his
assault, Louima reluctantly spoke about his life since that
1997 assault. It catapulted the Haitian immigrant into
something he never wanted to be: an activist and a cause
celebre.

Louima now spends a good bit of his time quietly
campaigning against police brutality, taking part in a
protest two years ago in North Bay Village, Fla., in
support of a Haitian pastor who died while in police
custody, and demanding that independent civilian councils
review such cases.

He also does charity work, mainly on behalf of Haitians.
For instance, he is paying the schooling fees for about two
dozen Haitian youngsters living in his old neighborhood of
Tomassin, outside Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

"My first priority is not here. It's Haiti," says the
37-year-old former security guard and car salesman, who
travels to Haiti frequently. "By God saving my life, I feel
I owe something to help others."

And only God, he says, knows how deeply the attack has
affected him. That is something he refuses to share, saying
only, "I believe in destiny. Everything that happens in
your life is supposed to happen."

Louima has never sought any professional help to deal with
the trauma of the assault.

"For what?" he says, without hesitation. "I have to choose
my own way to cope."

This is what happened: Six years ago on an August night,
Louima was handcuffed and arrested after a scuffle outside
a Brooklyn nightclub, then sodomized in a police station
bathroom. He spent two months hospitalized with internal
injuries including a ruptured bladder and colon.

Prosecutors brought criminal charges against several police
officers in what they called a racially motivated attack.
But the legal battles dragged on for years.

In the midst of this, Louima and his wife, Micheline won a
record $8.75 million civil judgment against the city of New
York and the Police Benevolent Association. After attorney
fees, he walked away with $5.75 million - enough to finance
a new life.

"I am an investor," says Louima, providing a rare hint
about how he's using the money, paid to him in
installments.

His investment portfolio consists of houses - not stocks,
he says. A year ago, Louima went into business for himself.
He founded a real estate and property management firm he
named Babou Enterprises, after his Haitian nickname.

It is here in the storefront office space with
water-stained ceiling tiles and worn carpeting - and not at
the four-bedroom, five-bathroom Miami Lakes house he
purchased last year for $475,000 - that Louima reflects on
his life. Babou Enterprises is located inside a North Miami
Beach shopping center, and sandwiched between an abortion
clinic and a lingerie shop.

"I chose real estate because it is easier and more stable
than the stock market," Louima says inside the sparsely
furnished room decorated solely with photographs. They
include pictures of his wife and three kids, 12, 7 and 4,
and of him alongside boxing promoter Don King, civil rights
activist Martin Luther King III and one of his attorneys.
"I do not have one dime on the stock market."

Throughout the interview, Louima rarely lets his guard
down. He is soft-spoken but on point, seldom elaborating
except when the question turns to Haiti's upcoming
bicentennial celebrations and his plans to send some
Haitian-American youngsters to celebrate next year. He held
a festival fundraiser in Miami last summer for the venture.

Since his settlement, Louima has become highly
sought-after, either for his name or his money. He treats
all the requests as he does everything else in his life: He
does not dwell. He thinks about it and moves on.

"I will always remain positive for the rest of my life," he
says.

Louima, making reference to a famous Biblical proverb, says
he prefers to teach someone how to fish, rather than to
give him a fish. It's this guiding principle that has led
him to pay the school fees - between $50 and $100 annually
- for the Haitian children. The school is run by a local
Catholic priest. Louima is Baptist.

"With the education, there is no way they will go into the
streets robbing people or killing them," says Louima, the
last of his siblings to come to the United States in 1990
to join his parents in New York.

He simultaneously jokes that he has no money while
declaring that he'll never be broke. Louima functions like
someone with $5,000 as opposed to $5 million, waking up
early every morning, driving east on Rt. 826 from his
quiet, ungated home to work.

When his children question why he works, he says:

"You may have something now, but if you don't make it work
for you, it will be tough. I have to teach them the reality
of life."

Later he elaborates a little, saying, "I am not working for
me, but to create something for my children to follow."

His priorities, he says, are his family - and Haiti.

"If I have anything, I believe the first dollar has to go
to Haiti," says Louima, who concedes he and his family
travel with bodyguards around the United States from time
to time because he is concerned about their safety.

To help him accomplish his goals for Haiti, he recently
started the Abner Louima Foundation, a non-profit. It has
three primary goals: providing financial aid to needy
Haitian children in Haiti, constructing senior citizens
centers primarily for Haitians in Miami and New York, and
building several hospitals in Haiti.

Providing medical care in a country where doctors lack even
the basics to do their jobs properly is the most ambitious
and challenging of the goals.

"Wherever there is a need, if I can help, I will do it,"
says Louima, who is currently looking for a site in
Port-au-Prince to build what he hopes would be the first of
several hospitals. His foundation, he said, will help raise
both the private and government donations needed to make
the project a reality.

Until now, many of Louima's philanthropic efforts have been
funded out of his pocket and with little fund-raising. His
biggest public effort to date was the Haitian American Day
Festival in July.

"He's become a very productive citizen. He is not resting
on his laurels," said Miami City Commissioner Art Teele,
who met Louima through attorney Johnnie Cochran when Louima
was exploring relocation to South Florida. "He helps people
from time to time but doesn't make a spectacle of it. He's
very committed to Haitians and Haitian causes."

Teele, who has made Louima a political ally, says he's very
understated. There are exceptions. In addition to his
current home - which cost twice as much as the first one he
bought when he first arrived here - there are the cars: A
black Mercedes Benz G 500 ($77,000), and a black Cadillac
Escalade Ext ($55,000). Among the three pieces of gold
jewelry he wears is a bracelet on his right arm, with his
nickname, Babou, spelled out in diamonds.

Teele and others say Louima recognizes that the attack has
changed his life in both positive and negative ways. One
constant reminder: A blown-up photo inside his house of New
Yorkers demonstrating on his behalf.

"You can't walk in and not see it," Teele says.

With that kind of awareness, few were surprised when Louima
agreed to take an active role in the campaign for an
independent citizens' review board in the city of Miami.

"He has a real understanding of where he is in society,"
said Max Rameau, a Miami-Dade activist and advocate of the
board who asked Louima to get involved.

Comparing Louima to Rodney King, another victim of police
brutality, Rameau says that Louima "is where Rodney King
should be right now: Someone who can come into a city and
have a direct and immediate impact on social issues.

"Rodney King has not been able to deal with what happened
to him," Rameau said. "Abner Louima represents in my mind
full redemption, not that he did anything wrong. He took
something bad that happened to him and turned it into a
positive."

---

© 2003, The Miami Herald.



__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com