by Alok Premjee
Basics #9 (May 2008)
Three New York police officers who shot and killed Sean Bell in a hail of 50 bullets in
November 2006 have been acquitted of all charges by the New York State Supreme Court. Before announcing his verdict on April 25, 2008, the judge stated that he found the police had a more credible story than that of the victims.
No weapon was ever located at the scene, yet that was supposedly the motive that triggered the police to blast away.
This should come as no shock to people in Toronto, where more than six months after the murder by police of 18-year-old Alwy Al-Nadhir there is still no response from the S.I.U. investigation. The family and friends of Alwy are bracing themselves for an equally unjust verdict, given the outrageous acquittal of Toronto police officers in the May 2004 killing of Filipino youth Jeffrey Reodica.
The recent murder of the indigenous man Byron Debassige in February 2008 for stealing two lemons in the Yonge and Davisville area demonstrates that Toronto police are not all that different from New York police. ∗
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