To condemn police violence: Jury awards large settlement

On June 6 a Bronx, N.Y., civil court jury awarded $10.5 million to Juanita Young, whose son Malcolm Ferguson was killed at point-blank range by policeman Louis Rivera on March 1, 2000. Five African Americans and one Latin@ found the city of New York and its police department 100 percent responsible for Malcolm’s death.

Malcolm Ferguson

Malcolm Ferguson was killed five days after he was arrested at a protest against the acquittal of the four cops who fatally shot Amadou Diallo 19 times according to the autopsy. Like the African immigrant Diallo, Ferguson, an African American, was unarmed. The undercover cop Louis Rivera shot Malcolm Ferguson in the head three blocks from where Amadou Diallo was killed the year before.

Were these mere coincidences? Many people in the Bronx don’t think so.

Margarita Rosario and Juanita Young. WW photo: Stephen Millies

In his closing argument to the jury, Young’s attorney Seth Harris truthfully described the police action that led to Malcolm Ferguson’s execution as a “hunting expedition.”

Rivera himself testified that he entered the apartment building at 1045 Boynton Ave. because he saw a “male Black” leave hurriedly with his hands in his pocket, glancing over his shoulder. That was enough reason for this plainclothes cop to barge into the building, accost Ferguson on the stairs and draw his weapon from its holster.

“You never heard Officer Rivera utter ‘Please forgive me, I’m sorry,’” Harris told the jurors.

The money awarded by the jury, which includes $7 million in punitive damages, won’t bring Ferguson back. But even this little bit of justice is being appealed by the city government. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has a personal fortune at least 500 times as large.

“I paid a heavy price over the last seven years,” said Juanita Young at a June 7 news conference in front of the Bronx Supreme Court. “I didn’t let that stop me. I have to get justice for my son.”

Young, who is legally blind, described how she was illegally evicted from her Section 8 apartment in 2003. “The cop pushed me down the stairs three times,” she said.

Young was arrested in her own home on trespassing charges. Her hand was injured. A policeman told her, “No rallies for you today.”

Young was held for 35 hours and fingerprinted five times. “If you run, we shoot you in the head,” is what a cop told her during one of the of the many times she was shunted between five precincts.

Juanita Young and her family were homeless for months. Judge Benítez found Young not guilty two years later.

Cops arrested Young’s eldest son because he supposedly looked like a murder suspect, described as “a tall Black man in a black jacket.” A daughter was arrested for robbery and then let go with no charges filed. Another son of hers was threatened with jail for throwing snowballs when there was no snow on the ground.

Well after Ferguson was killed, police came to Young’s block showing neighbors Ferguson’s picture and asking them if he still lived in the area.

This sadistic campaign failed to intimidate Juanita Young. She continued to work with other parents whose children were killed by police in the Oct. 22nd Coalition and Parents Against Police Brutality.

Nicholas Heyward, Sr. came to the hearing. His 13-year old son, Nicholas Naquan Heyward, Jr., was playing cops and robbers in the Gowanus Houses when a housing cop killed him on Sept. 27, 1994. Young Nicholas dropped his bright orange toy gun and said “we’re only playing” twice before he was killed.

Margarita Rosario and Anthony Rosario came. Their son, Anthony Rosario, was shot in the back and arms 14 times while their nephew Hilton Vega was shot eight times. Both were lying face down on a floor when they were killed.

One of the two detectives who shot these young men on March 12, 1995, had earlier been a bodyguard for Rudolph Giuliani. When Margarita Rosario called Mayor Giuliani’s radio show on WABC, he cut her off and said she was a bad mother. Why isn’t Giuliani questioned about this while he’s running for president?

A ‘loving son’ who helped people

At the Ferguson trial a retired police sergeant and an assistant medical examiner initially refused to honor subpoenas to testify.

Young had to listen to Louis Rivera describe how he killed her son. According to the medical examiner’s report, the muzzle of Rivera’s gun was against Ferguson’s head when it was fired.

The most compelling testimony was given by Young. She told the jury about her “loving son,” who was a “happy-go-lucky kid” who liked basketball. Malcolm would often look after children in the neighborhood.

Like millions of youths, Malcolm spent time in jail on drug charges. He earned his GED during his eight months in jail, five years before he was killed. Ferguson helped his mother with paperwork and bills because of her limited vision. Along with Young’s other children, Malcolm would cook and slice so his mother wouldn’t cut herself.

Up to when he was 12 years old, Ferguson would accompany his mother to camp for the blind. He would help sightless people at the camp and in his Bronx neighborhood.

Malcolm liked to shop for the family because he could buy spaghetti. Malcolm loved spaghetti, said Young.

Officer Louis Rivera put his 9 millimeter semiautomatic gun on Malcolm Ferguson’s shoulder as they both were lying on the stairs of the apartment house, with Rivera behind Ferguson. This cop testified in an earlier deposition that he was mad at Ferguson. At the trial Rivera admitted that Malcolm never reached for the cop’s gun.

On the first day of the hearing city attorney Erious Johnson tried to prevent Juanita Young from testifying at all about “pain and suffering.” The “reason” given was that she was “only” Malcolm’s mother, not his spouse or child!

The jury awarded $3 million for the pain and suffering that Malcolm endured as he waited to die.

Even the police department initially took away Rivera’s gun and badge for 15 months. This homicide was not even listed on one of their forms.

Yet the Bronx D.A.’s office refuses to re-open any criminal investigation of Malcolm Ferguson’s death. No justice, no peace!

The writer attended the trial proceedings.