#2990: Rally in N.Y. After Police Shooting (fwd)

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From:nozier@tradewind.net

Saturday March 25 12:20 PM ET 
 Rally in N.Y. After Police Shooting
 By BETH GARDINER, Associated Press Writer 

 NEW YORK (AP) - Thousands of mourners filled the streets of a New York
City neighborhood Saturday to express outrage once again at a police
shooting of an unarmed black man, this time a Haitian immigrant who     
rebuffed an undercover officer's request for drugs. A hearse carrying
the body of 26-year-old Patrick Dorismond led the miles-long
 protest march of mourners. Many demanded the mayor's resignation over
the police killing of another unarmed man. Earsplitting shrieks and
hysterical shouts accompanied the honking of car horns as protesters
knocked down police barricades. A car driving the wrong way on the
street was plastered with banners, including some that read: ``If you
shoot one of my children, I shoot five of you'' and ``Rudy Giuliani,
shoot one of my children and your son Andrew will go to his grave''    
A man walking through a crush of people shouted:``Rudy, I'll blow you up
to kingdom come, cut you with a chain saw, and feed you to the
dogs!''    Another protester's sign named others caught up in
police-linked violence: ``Diallo, Louima, Baez, Bumpers, enough.''``It's
our blood, it's not cheap. We must let them know this must stop,'' said
Michel
 Eddy, a 26-year-old Haitian immigrant. Dorismond, the son of Haitian
singer Andre Dorismond, was fatally shot March 16 during a scuffle with
an undercover police officer. The officer allegedly approached
Dorismond, a security guard, as part of a drug sting and asked if he
would sell him marijuana. The scuffle ensued, backup officers
 arrived and one officer's gun went off, killing Dorismond.
 It was the fourth shooting of an unarmed black civilian by undercover
officers in the city in the past 13 months and came only a few weeks
after an Albany jury acquitted four white undercover officers in the
shooting of Amadou Diallo, who died in a hail of 41 bullets.
 As Dorismond's coffin was brought out from the funeral home draped in
Haitian and American flags, what had started as a quiet family gathering
grew into a loud protest march of at least 2,500 people.
 The Rev. Al Sharpton headed the procession with supporters hoisting a
banner that read ``Justice for Patrick.'' Mayor Rudolph Giuliani came
under fire after the shooting for releasing information from Dorismond's
police record, including sealed juvenile files, and for not visiting
Dorismond's family. Cathy Dumont, 26, a Haitian-born Brooklyn resident,
compared Haiti's decades of military rule with America's democracy.
 ``Mrs. Dorismond took her son out of a military regime and brought him
here because she thought it would be better and safer, but Giuliani and
the way he's empowered the police have proved her wrong,'' she said.
 At Dorismond's wake Friday evening, thousands paid their respects as
sobs drifted through the largely Haitian crowd of family, friends and
supporters. One mourner, Blaise Lambre, described Dorismond as ``a
person who just enjoyed life,'' and he blamed Giuliani for failing to
show sympathy for the family. ``Picture somebody you grew up with,
played in the same building with, did everything with,'' Lambre said.
``I'm angry at the fact that he died. ... It was wrong. To me, it's
murder, simple as that.'' Sharpton and police brutality victim Abner
Louima, also a Haitian immigrant, were among those at the wake.
 ``This has happened too much and it's only happening in our
community,'' said Sharpton. ``We must ask God to give us strength that
in Patrick's name this can stop.''