Good Sense, Fairness And Broken Windows

Fifteen years ago, when anger over the killing of Amadou Diallo by police provoked enough outrage with the Giuliani administration’s policies to produce mass demonstrations on a daily basis outside 1 Police Plaza, and former Mayors Ed Koch and David Dinkins were among those who submitted to arrests to register their own disapproval, an unlikely figure echoed a charge by the Rev. Al Sharpton that Mayor Rudy Giuliani failed to grasp the anger felt toward cops in the city’s black and Latino neighborhoods.

“Reverend Sharpton has clearly indicated that he doesn’t believe the Mayor fully understands the feeling of the minority community about this issue,” Bill Bratton, who less than four years earlier had been Mr. Giuliani’s hard-charging Police Commissioner, told the New York Times. “I share that opinion. The Mayor is going to have to understand that these demonstrations are reflections of a deep-rooted feeling, particularly in the minority community, that something is not working the way it should as it relates to police and community relations.”