BY: THOMAS F. LIOTTI
The exhaustive and commendable expose by Newsday into police
misconduct in Nassau and Suffolk Counties reveals the underbelly of the
criminal justice system to the lay public but for those of us who must
frustratingly deal with an errant system each day, it is just the tip of the
iceberg masked by corrupted elected officials who have an interest in seeing to
it that things stay as they are. Newsday should continue its work because it
alone may be successful in awakening the public's conscience to the issues of
public corruption and police misconduct. It is rampant and deadly. It demands
immediate action from all elected officials.
Following the Knapp and Mollen Commissions in New York City,
the socalled Armstrong Commission was established to prosecute cases of police
misconduct. In contrast, to independence of such a special prosecutor, District
Attorneys and elected officials stand for election and accept campaign
contributions from police unions. No wonder we hardly ever see criminal
legislation that might curtail some of the more prevalent misconduct.
We need a Special Prosecutor statewide to deal with these
cases and we need Civilian Complaint Review Boards to conduct real
investigations and not the white washed versions run by Police Department
Internal Affairs. Nassau and Suffolk should have Ombudsmen or women appointed
for a term of years much like F.B.I. Directors appointed for a term of ten (10)
years.
Campaign contributions to District Attorneys, judges and
elected officials by the P.B.A. should be outlawed. Salaries and pensions by
corrupted police should be revoked. If taxpayers want an honest government,
they must fight for it. Newsday can not do it alone even if they do again win
the Pulitzer Prize for their investigation which they should.
Thomas F. Liotti is an attorney in Garden City and Village
Justice in Westbury. He is the former Chair of the Nassau Bar Association Civil
Rights Committee.