From: Ed Kent

Once upon a time I worked in a West Harlem community Center (late 1950s) and then again lived in Grant Houses (W, 125th St. - early 1960s). Those were what one might call the 'bad old days' of the NYPD.

During this period:

1) One of my graduate student friends who was an early jogger had a bullet winged past his head by a cop who claimed that he thought that since he was running, he must be a perp.

2) An 11-year-old was shot and killed by a cop while trying to steal a hub cap off a Volkswagen. My kids (gang) used to have a game of points which were awarded -- 1-5 -- for stealing something (anything) from a car. Points were determined by the status of the car -- Volkswagens were at the bottom of the heap with Chevys, Fords, etc.

3) A 14-year-old was shot by a plainclothes cop who claimed that he had tried to mug him. The kid died on the roof of the building to which the cops pursued him but did not find him -- bled and froze to death on a bitter January night -- we watched them search and not find him. He was not, apparently, armed.

4) We watched sergeants make their weekly pick-ups of payoffs from Selbra's lounge -- not to bring some charge against her -- on 125th St. We were at the other end of the bar.

5) We watched cops in uniform chug quarts of beer commandeered from local bodegas on hot summer afternoons.

6) A cop who loved operas drove our local book and record store out of business by demanding so many record collections free for not doing citations that the owner gave up in the face of bankruptcy.

7) A cop who shot and killed an honors high school student in front of a crowd that claimed that the kid did not threaten the cop with the knife that he then pulled out and threw down took medical leave and for $1500 took care of the bookie who was threatening the brother of the wife of one of my Yale classmates.

Then we had reform.

It looks as though Giuliani and Safir are taking us back to the bad old days -- 41 bullets of which 19 hit and killed and Giuliani is out campaigning?

It makes me puke! -Ed Kent

As a former NYC teacher (substitute), Youth Board Gang Worker, then a police officer and detective (Special Frauds Bureau), and former US counterinsurgency official overseas, I can confirm Edward Kent's comments on the growing fascistic actions of the NYC PD.

From just under two years back in the city, I have concluded the force has a far, far more aggresive attitude towards the public, are far more arrogant and uncivilized in their behavior, are badly and wrongly trained in the sense of who they serve. Now it's themselves first, i.e. their pension and personal long-term security, other cops next, with the public trailing a long, long distance behind.

It is my opinion that it is not only fascist type, ego-tripping power-mongering, statistic-loving machismo officials like Giuliani who promote such values and comportment by American security forces but also our National leadership. Men who virtually teach and live an analogous system of values. From the Executive Branch to Congress to the Military and Intelligence agencies, down to Federal police forces like the FBI, DEA, BATF, etc., there has set in a degree of moral and material corruption that was found only in a minority of such 'national security' employees when I was one of them from the early to the mid-sixties.

It is a question of bad national values and will not change substantially except by playing phony tricks with statistics and using further tyranical controls to regulate negative human behavior, a la Giuliani. Until, that is (and if), the public wakes up and learns just how much the American ethos, therefore their own moral code, has been exampled and manipulated downwards by their selfish leaders. At that point they may also wake up to understand just what is happening to the American 'dream'; and just how badly has deteriorated the international respect with which America was once held overseas.

From 27 years working as a private loss consultant overseas, in some 35 countries, it amazes me how much of a joke the vaunted 'American Way' has become to most Europeans and many other foreigners since I first went overseas in 1967. Except among the poorest from the poorest countries (many made so by the spreading of the American hubris encompassing Laissez-Faire Capitalism), who understand that America is still the best place to make money legally and illegally, specialy when disregarding or abandoning ethical considerations for others.

In less than 2 years now back in the Land of the Big PX (you probably know this was the Nam GIs' term for 'home'), I have moved from thinking a more evident fascism will have to arise here before the sleepy, ignorant, fat and armchair hypnotized self-centeredly hubristic American + or - 80% begin to awaken and agitate, or revolt directly, against the sharp con job being perpetrated by this Plutocracy they still naively call democracy..., to now thinking that America's rulers already have well laid a blanket of fascism-intended political, social and economic laws, rules, procedures and controls over the heads of our sonombulent masses; that the system is already the CUTEST (i.e., most imagistic), BEST DESIGNED (i.e., full of plastic illusions); MOST SOPHISTICATED (i.e., highly refined, as oppossed to the physical crudity of the likes of Hitler and Stalin in verbosely noting their evil intentions); MOST HYPOCRITICAL in using god and flag as excuses (i.e., compared to other tyrannical regimes like the Nazis - or even simple dictatorships like our old "devils" Mao and Uncle Ho - who were far, far more honest and straight-forward in affecting and enforcing their unilateral programs than America's Plutocrat fraud artists are in inculcating theirs); BIGGEST COWARDLY LIARS (i.e., sly schemers, white collar criminals not nearly as honest as the stick-up man who points his piece in your face to rob you). It takes much longer for the ignorant to recognize the white collar Plutocrat contrrollling then than the thug with a gun robbing them. I've had three run-ins with cops since I've been back, and the only reason I wasn't locked up - incidental to the fact that I had not broken any law - two of those times was that I told the cops to their faces what a former detective thought of their manners and behavior. If I was a 'mere' civilian I would have been smacked around and arrested but these gays didn't have the balls to go against a knowledgeable ex-cop who stood up to their shit. But if I stay longer no doubt something more serious will happen, for all I need is to see cops illegally beating on someone to get myself in real trouble. Many of the cops are now simply rascists, brutal, incompetent thugs carrying out the orders of like-minded bosses from DC types to Pataki types right to that little Hitler Giuliani.