Loud and Clear

National Review Online, June 16, 2000

The ‘wolf pack’ attacks in Central Park were a disgrace. The reaction to them — an unappetizing blend of ethnic politics and PC posturing — has not been much better, evidence of a mindset that, if it didn't exactly cause last Sunday's nightmare, certainly paved the way for it. Key to it is the idea that the police are always in the wrong. If they make an arrest they've gone in too hard, probably, it will be alleged, from racist motives. Any mistake will bring vilification, maybe prosecution, and certainly Al Sharpton. As for the cops involved in the Diallo tragedy, their bonus was pre-trial condemnation as murderers by the First Lady of the United States.

If, on the other hand, the police do nothing, they are also to blame. They are lazy bums, we will be told, more interested in their next doughnut than helping the public. And this, of course, became the spin on Central Park. Leftist lawyer Ron Kuby, a newcomer to the law-and-order crowd, worried that the police may have been sitting 'on their fat butts' rather than doing their jobs. Ah, what sweet liberal relief.

Awkward questions over the Puerto Rican parade could be glossed over as the media turned on an easier target — the police. The story became not what the bad boys did do, but what the NYPD didn't do, the "Cop Out" as the Daily News put it. Inevitably, Reverend Al caught the mood, appearing as an adviser to two of the victims in a $5,000,000 lawsuit against, not, naturally, the assailants, but the city.

Of course, much of the criticism was unfair. Rudy Giuliani's claim that 2,500 bottles of beer had been confiscated may have had the ring of desperation about it, but most cops did a good job. Also, it must be remembered that it's not easy to see what's going on in the middle of a huge crowd. Spotted from a couple of hundred yards away wilding can all too easily be mistaken for high jinks, spring-break fun, rather than feral nastiness.

Besides, if the police had moved in and acted pre-emptively, what would have been recorded by all those amateur video cameramen in the park? Not women, naked, humiliated, and in tears, but white cops pushing their way through a minority crowd, and I think we know how the evening news would have played that story. Somebody else would have sued for $5,000,000. The police explanation that the mob was about to get out of control would have been rejected, as being based on derogatory, racist assumptions.

Mind you, it appears that, on this occasion there is something to the criticism: Too many of the police were those crucial couple of hundred yards away, at the perimeter rather than in the action. Police treatment of some of the victims also left much to be desired and added to reports of crowd control that seemed strangely detached, "lackadaisical" in the words of one witness. A disturbing number of New York's Finest just did not want to get involved. In short, NYPD blew it, and if you believe the conspiracy theorists, they did so, because they were told to.

This has been denied, and believably so. There was no need: The police are getting the message. Why take that risk, why go down that darkened alley, when your only reward is Geraldo to Couric to Rosie criticism on the TV? The constant agitation is taking its toll. Cheap shots at the police claim more victims than just the boys in blue. It's no coincidence that Big Apple crime figures are on the rise, and not only in Central Park. Across the Atlantic the Brits have gone down the same anti-police route, culminating in the publication of an official report of absurd political correctness. The consequences? Street crime in London is running at twice last year's levels.

And if there was a day for a cowed New York police force to be careful, restrained and low profile it was last Sunday. At the National Puerto Rican Day Parade there can be no room for anything that could be remotely interpreted as a Sipowicz moment. Ethnic parades are a weird phenomenon, more Serbia than Central Park, yet they are the principal symbols of New York's ruling ideology, the "glorious mosaic" of former mayor David Dinkins, a vision of racial harmony best represented by that old Coke commercial ("I'd like to teach the world to sing"). In reality, of course, such a view is not the real thing. So the police normally take a pretty tough line with parades, confiscating drinks, lining the streets, and generally delivering a message of zero tolerance. Just ask the folks on St. Patrick's Day.

But there wasn't enough of that last Sunday. Zero tolerance was, at times, replaced with anything goes. Revelers may have been 2,500 bottles short, but as one onlooker explained, "alcohol was all over the place." It wasn't supposed to be that way, but then with the Puerto Rican Day parade it rarely is. For the authorities want us to believe that this parade is the jewel in the mosaic, "an annual celebration", as Hillary's website puts it, "of Puerto Rican culture, music and ethnic pride," a happy and enjoyable day for all. In reality, as is inevitable with almost any large gathering, the picture is more tricky than that. Mentioning that fact beyond, perhaps, a coy reference to "exuberance," is not part of the liberal script. It was fascinating to see that, as the first serious reports of trouble emerged, New York politicians were quick to defend the parade. There had been problems, certainly, but they couldn't be allowed to get in the way of the greater 'truth' that they wanted us to hear. The day had been a success, they soothed in the tone of voice that they would have used to tell Mrs. Lincoln that, yes indeed, the play had been a smash.

And sadly, the police had learned their lines too well.