NEW YORK
Abner Louima testifies on 1997 police torture
By Greg
Butterfield
New York
With great courage and dignity, Haitian immigrant Abner
Louima took the witness stand in federal court in Brooklyn May
6 to testify against four white cops who beat him and later
tortured and raped him in the bathroom of a Brooklyn police
station in August 1997.
The four cops--Officers Justin Volpe, Charles Schwarz,
Thomas Wiese and Thomas Bruder--are charged with violating
Louima's civil rights. A fifth cop, Sgt. Michael Bellomo, is
charged with covering up the attack.
All five pleaded not guilty.
As supporters packed the courtroom, Louima described the
brutal assault of Aug. 9, 1997, which left him "in a battle
between life and death."
Louima described how Volpe beat him outside Club
Rendez-Vous, a popular Haitian dance club in the mostly Black
and immigrant Flatbush section of Brooklyn. Louima was thrown
to the ground in front of eyewitnesses, handcuffed, and stuffed
into a police car where he was beaten.
Louima testified that when they reached the 70th Precinct,
the cops dragged him into the bathroom. As he lay in pain from
a kick to the groin, Louima said, Volpe rammed a broken broom
handle into his rectum. Volpe then jammed the bloodied and
feces-covered stick down Louima's throat, smashing his teeth.
Schwarz held him down.
Louima screamed during the torture. But no one in the
precinct tried to help him.
The cops warned Louima that if he told anyone what happened
they would kill him and his family. They held him for hours
without any medical treatment. They also planned to charge
Louima with assault, until the public outcry forced them to
drop the idea.
The attack tore Louima's rectum and bladder and damaged his
spleen. He was hospitalized for two months and required three
operations.
Although he is recovering, Louima testified, he is still
unable to work.
"I want them to pay for all the pain and suffering they have
caused me," the immigrant worker said.
Louima's torture sparked massive demonstrations and outrage
in New York and Haiti in the summer of 1997. The case brought
worldwide attention to the rampant police brutality under Mayor
Rudolph Giuliani's regime.
These protests forced the U.S. Justice Department to take
over the case and bring it to federal court. The Haitian
community knew there would be no justice in a Giuliani
courtroom.
Still, it's taken almost two years for the police to be
brought to trial.
That's typical in police brutality cases. The courts and the
whole legal system--in collusion with the major corporate
media--bend over backward to protect the cops and give them
every opportunity to fabricate a defense. Often they have
unlimited opportunities to intimidate witness, destroy
evidence, and float wild stories designed to discredit the
victims.
This is another, deeper layer of that infamous "blue wall of
silence" surrounding police brutality.
Clearly, the cops and their lawyers have tried to take full
advantage of the legal system's bias.
In April--shortly after the slaying of another Black
immigrant, Amadou Diallo, by four white cops in the Bronx--the
officers' lawyers argued the Louima trial should be delayed "at
least six months" until the anti-police-brutality climate in
the city had changed. They also asked the judge to move the
trial outside the city.
Although Judge Eugene Nickerson denied these appeals, the
jury selection process stretched out for five weeks. The
result: a jury of eight white people, three Latinos and just
one African American--in a city that is over 60 percent people
of color.
The jury's composition clearly fits into the cops' plan.
Marvyn Kornberg is Volpe's lawyer. Kornberg makes his living
defending killer cops, racists and gay bashers. Kornberg, a
hired gun for the police, is notorious for his viciously racist
arguments in court cases.
In his opening statement in the Louima trial, Kornberg
claimed his client was innocent and that Louima's story was
"fabricated" in collusion with civil-rights leader the Rev. Al
Sharpton.
Kornberg would never be able to get away with that kind of
racist claim before a largely Black and Latino jury.
Defense lawyers immediately tried to put Louima on trial.
They attacked minor inconsistencies in his testimony--the
testimony of a person who was tortured, handcuffed to a
hospital bed for days and fighting for his life on heavy
medications.
They also attacked Louima for filing a civil lawsuit against
the city seeking monetary damages. Often this is the only way
police-brutality victims can get any sliver of justice through
the courts.
Gay groups protest
Kornberg is set to argue that Louima's injuries were a
result of consensual sex--a blatantly homophobic argument that
lesbian, gay, bi and trans organizations have protested.
The New York Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project and other
groups held a May 6 protest and news conference outside the
court to denounce Kornberg's anti-gay defense tactics.
Kornberg used a similar strategy in the Julio Rivera murder
trial in 1991, said AVP Executive Director Richard Haymes.
Rivera was a gay man killed by bigots in Queens.
"In that case as in this one, Kornberg put the victim on
trial. He indicated that Julio's own behavior brought about his
death and described a gay lifestyle that was far beyond reason
and reality.
"Clearly, Volpe is desperate and has nothing else to offer
except this reprehensible defense," said Haymes.
Clarence Patton of AVP said: "Thankfully, Abner Louima is
still living to defend himself against this egregious strategy.
This is a clear effort on the part of Volpe and Kornberg to
prejudice the jury by making them react to vile fantasy."
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