Westchester Guardian/In Our Opinion/Our Readers Respond.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

In Our Opinion...
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Cop Out City

The conduct of Yonkers Police Office Wayne Simoes, caught on a surveillance camera as he all but murdered Irma Marquez, is totally indefensible; and so is the conduct of Mayor Amicone, Police Commissioner Hartnett, Simoes’ superiors, and the City’s Corporate Counsel. It is clear from the course the City of Yonkers has apparently chosen to follow, both with respect to Of-ficer Simoes, and his victim, Ms. Marquez, that there is obvious and identifiable culpability at every level of elected and appointed authority, and that nothing short of a comprehensive federal response will suffice. Every police officer, from the Commissioner, a civilian, on down, who failed to properly respond to the irrefutable evidence of the videotape, must be appropriately prosecuted for covering up a serious crime.

A published newspaper account by reporter Timothy O’Connor in The Journal News quoted attorney Peter Meisels, of the Wilson, Elser law firm, White Plains, representing the City of Yonkers, saying in Federal District Court, “As it turns out, Ms. Marquez was highly intoxicated. She was interfering with the police officers’ ability to render aid to her niece.”

Apparently, the Amicone Administration sees something in the videotape the rest of the civilized world, including the two officers administering that aid, is somehow missing. In fact, they have already testified at Marquez’ ill-advised criminal trial that they were not hampered in their efforts by her.

We must question precisely where Meisels, and the Amicone Administration, think they are going. Do they mean to suggest that Marquez’ intoxicated condition provides justification for having slammed her, face-first, into a tile floor like a rag doll? Is brutality at the hands of police the “wages of sin”?

We think not. The Murphy-Mayo Report, commissioned 20 years ago by then-Yonkers City Manager DeLuca, made the need to eliminate police brutality, and to establish a Civilian Complaint Review process, very high priorities going forward. It is obvious that successive City administrations of which Phil Amicone has been a key player for more than a dozen years, have had no intention of eliminating the police brutality and repeated use of excessive force. It is no coincidence that only the Yonkers Police Department, of all departments in the
region, sends its uniformed officers out on patrol without name tags.

To attempt to suggest that Ms. Marquez’ being intoxicated, in a drinking establishment, somehow mitigates Officer Simoes’ nearly killing her merely confirms the very sick mentality of those in authority and position in the City of Yonkers. No right-minded Yonkers cop can possibly sympathize with, or defend, the actions of Wayne Simoes, nor the response of their department.

We once again call upon the City of Yonkers to establish a bonafide Civilian Complaint Review Board; one that is chaired by, and controlled by, civilians. Further, we call for the mandatory wearing of name tags by all uniformed police officers; and, random compulsory drug and steroid testing.

Our Readers Respond....

Reader Declares He’s A Little Confused


Dear Editor:

I’m a little confused. With all the misinformation filling the print and electronic media, you may be too late. Let’s see if I have this straight and, in so doing, may be of help to you...

Obama: If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you’re “exotic, different”.

Palin: Grow up in Alaska, eating mooseburgers, a quintessential American story. Obama: If your name is Barack you’re a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.

Palin: Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track; you’re a maverick.

Obama: Graduate from Harvard Law School you are unstable.

Palin: Attend five different small colleges before graduating, you’re well-grounded.

Obama: If you spend three years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first Black president of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend eight years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the State Senate’s Health and Human Services Committee, spend four years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veterans Affairs Committee, you don’t have any real leadership experience.

Palin: If your total resume is local weather girl, four years on the city council and six years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 600,000 people, then you’re qualified to become the country’s second-highest ranking executive.

Obama: If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising two beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you’re not a real Christian.

McCain: If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you’re a good Christian. Obama: If you teach responsible, age-appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the
fiber of society.

Palin: If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state’s school
system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you’re very responsible...Never mind that you and First Dude eloped because
of your own out-of-wedlock pregnancy.

Obama: If you wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family’s values don’t represent America’s.

Palin: If your husband is nicknamed “First Dude”, with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn’t register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the United States of America, your family is extremely admirable.

Ed Krauss, Greenburgh