Mugged (7 page)

The drug-den sisters who claimed they had witnessed O’Keefe beating and shooting Garcia from a stairwell landing must have realized the grand jurors would be brighter than Jim Dwyer, so they explained they could see what was happening because they were lying down with their heads on the floor. All forensic experts concluded that, even lying down, it was impossible to see the lobby from the second-floor landing. The Garcia family’s criminologist even used a laser beam to try to confirm the sisters’ claim, but found that, at most, they could have only seen someone’s feet. (Or maybe they saw the whole thing by “kneeling,” as Jim Dwyer reported for
Newsday
.)

Also inconsistent with the sisters’ description of a trigger-happy cop pitilessly torturing Garcia were tapes of Officer O’Keefe’s high-pitched shrieks of “Ten-thirteen!” into his police radio, meaning “Officer in need of assistance”: “Ten-thirteen! Ten-thirteen! 163 Street and St. Nick, send help! Ten-thirteen, 163 Street and St. Nick, send help!”
⁴²
His partners barely recognized O’Keefe’s voice, saying it sounded like a woman screaming.
⁴³

In the end, the grand jury concluded that O’Keefe was telling the truth and had acted in self-defense, and that the sisters were telling big stinking lies. (The rest of “the neighborhood” disappeared when it came time to make their statements under oath and not just to naïve reporters.)

After noting that the officer’s account was corroborated by the autopsy,
the toxicology tests and physical evidence at the scene, DA Morgenthau summarized the grand jury’s conclusions as to the credibility of O’Keefe’s accusers:

The drug-den sisters had provably lied under oath to a grand jury—admittedly, not about something as important as whether they had used the N-word in the prior ten years—but in accusing a New York City cop of cold-blooded murder. As a result of their lies, the city was forced to waste two months of the grand jurors’ time, as well as that of ten investigators and six prosecutors, who interviewed hundreds of people and presented more than a hundred exhibits to the grand jury.
⁴⁵
If the sisters’ claims had not been proved false by mountains of physical evidence, their lies could have sent a policeman to prison for life for the crime of risking his life to get a drug dealer out of a black neighborhood.

But—as with so many other lies about racism—no charges would be brought against the perjurious women. To the contrary, it was Garcia’s family that was looking for a lawsuit. They responded to the grand jury’s painstaking investigation by demanding a federal civil rights investigation of the police department
⁴⁶
and a state investigation into the grand jury.
⁴⁷
In Washington Heights, protestors dissatisfied with the grand jury’s conclusion marched in protest, requiring yet another infusion of police into the neighborhood to prevent more riots.

The endless stream of false civil-rights claims on behalf of cop killers and drug dealers debased the cause of real civil rights and caused the immiseration of many people—always with dollops of abuse for anyone who dissented from conventional wisdom. When all the people the media had ridiculed turned out to be right, liberal zealots were still praised for their admirable goals. Why should it matter if they thought they were doing the right thing at the time? Hitler thought he was doing the right thing at the time. But on the left, you can never fail your way out of public life.

In the world before OJ, racial intimidation ruled the day—except against liberals, who were immunized from charges of racism even if they had been Klansmen. Reporters became junior G-men ferreting out racist thoughts, knowing full well that the mere accusation of racism could destroy careers and reputations.

The racism hunters ruined lives, but they never paid a price. To the contrary, they got their butts kissed, collected awards, appeared on the David Susskind show and were the subject of “profiles in courage” testimonials. Any white person could get a standing ovation for accusing other white people of being racist.
Let’s be honest, we live in racist society
.

Why is that courageous? Normally, being honest consists of admitting something about yourself, not slinging slurs at others.

Defending the race-baiting courtroom techniques of famed black attorney Alton H. Maddox Jr., for example, Legal Services NYC attorney James I. Meyerson told the
Washington Post
that Maddox was “making all of us confront the barriers of our own racism.”
¹
“Our” racism means “yours”—not his. Liberal honesty consists of saying:
I didn’t do it! They did!

While white people lived under a presumption of guilt, black crimes were excused, lied about or unreported. White people have done their part by telling everyone not to be prejudiced against black teenagers. The next step is for black teenagers to stop committing so many crimes. That’s the problem, but for decades it was hidden under a tsunami of excuses for black criminals and alerts about pervasive white racism every time any white harmed a black person.

EDMUND PERRY—1985

In the summer of 1985, Edmund Perry, a black teenager from Harlem, had just graduated from Exeter and was headed to Stanford on a full scholarship when he mugged a guy who turned out to be an undercover cop, and ended up dead.

Officer Lee Van Houten was patroling the St. Luke’s Hospital parking lot dressed as a medical intern. Perry and his brother, Jonah, grabbed him from behind, threw him to the ground and started pummeling and kicking him. Van Houten screamed that he was a cop, but they kept pounding on him and shouting, “Give it up!” On the verge of unconsciousness, Van Houten pulled his ankle gun and fired at his attackers, hitting Perry who died a few hours later.

And then we were off to the races.

The
New York Post
: “COP KILLS HARLEM HONOR STUDENT”

The
New York Times
: “HONOR STUDENT, 17, IS KILLED BY POLICEMAN ON WEST SIDE.”

The
Los Angeles Times
: “SAYS VICTIM ATTACKED HIM, MOTHER CHARGES RACISM; OFFICER KILLS TOP STUDENT, SETS OFF FUROR.”

How about, “Hero Cop Attacked by Privileged Teen”?

Unfortunately for the twenty-four-year-old Van Houten, he was white, so the press had all the information it needed. Until that night, Van Houten had an unblemished record during his two years on the force and had never fired his gun in the line of duty. But instead of waiting for the facts, the media rushed out with a story about a trigger-happy racist cop. Van Houten’s claim of self-defense was surrounded with quotes from others expressing skepticism.

When they’re maligning Joe McCarthy, liberals are happy to remind us that an accusation is not proof of guilt. But all that innocent-until-proved-guilty claptrap flies out the window in the case of a politically incorrect crime. This is the racism exception to journalistic skepticism. For certain charges—racism, police brutality, rape—the media have decided to suspend all doubt about the accuser. The allegation alone is proof of guilt. If the accused says he’s innocent, liberals stare in wonderment:
What kind of monster defends himself from a charge of racism?
You just had to hope no one accused you.

From the moment Edmund Perry was shot, the media noisily jumped on the bandwagon of a phony police brutality charge. When it turned out
to be false, the
New York Times
silently looked at its shoes. It was the kind of story the elites wanted to be true, so it should be true.
We had such high hopes for that one. Damn!

Typical was an article in the
Village Voice
on the Perry shooting that explained: “[L]ike so many other victims in this city,” Perry was “just too black for his own good.”
²
The
Voice
’s Nelson George went on to report fanciful accounts of the shooting from unnamed witnesses, as well as his own unfounded speculation. He hypothesized that Van Houten had been mugged by three other men; that he had not been knocked to the ground by muggers because, George claimed, the autopsy indicated Perry was shot from a distance and from a standing position; and that the officer was not on duty but “moonlighting” as a security guard.

None of this would be backed up by witnesses who testified to the grand jury and at trial. To the contrary, a number of witnesses, including black witnesses, supported Van Houten’s account. If a conservative journalist retailed this many false facts about, say, Obama’s birth certificate, he’d never get another serious job.

Most amusingly, George reported that Perry’s friends and family had seen Officer Van Houten leave the hospital at one a.m. the night of the shooting, surrounded by “eight plainclothes and uniformed police” and…
he had no visible signs of injury
!
³
Of course, the only member of Perry’s entourage who would have had the first idea what Van Houten looked like was his brother, Jonah, who participated in the mugging. But he said he wasn’t there, so he couldn’t very well claim to recognize the officer.

In any event, Van Houten was not walking out of St. Luke’s surrounded by other officers at one a.m. because he was kept overnight for treatment to “cuts and bruises to his face, arms and back and injury to his neck,” according to the
New York Times
and every other news outlet other than the
Voice
.
⁴

Evidently, Perry’s friends and family saw a different white guy leaving the hospital at one a.m with no visible scratches. (Just as when, in 2012, MSNBC triumphantly presented grainy videos of Trayvon Martin’s shooter, George Zimmerman, in the police station hours after the shooting to proclaim him scratch-free—until more contemporaneous photos were produced showing bleeding welts on the back of his head.)

George characterized the police’s position thus: “[W]hen Edmund saw a chance to mug a white person he took it. Really, what other motivation would a young nigger need?”
⁵
There was no evidence that Van Houten or anyone else had used the N-word. Only the liberal used it.

Perry’s mother blamed her son’s death on white resentment toward successful blacks: “White people hated to see his success. That’s the only way I can figure it. They wanted to wipe him out.”
⁶
It’s not unusual for a mother to refuse to believe her son committed a crime. What’s unusual is for the media to encourage such unfounded beliefs.

News accounts stressed not only that Perry was a graduate of Exeter on his way to Stanford, but that he was unarmed. In all white-on-black shootings, the media expect the white person to have RoboCop-like superpowers to detect weapons or the lack thereof, as well as the attacker’s resumé.

A few weeks after the shooting, the
New York Times
editorialized about Perry, “a prized symbol of hope.” In a telling bit of obtuseness, the
Times
said that “all New Yorkers have extraordinary reasons to wish for the innocence of the young man who was killed.” I doubt very much that the cop being accused of murder hoped for that.

The
Times
criticized the police for saying they had numerous witnesses backing up the officer’s story, but giving no details (after two whole weeks). Following
Times
guidelines, the paper blamed everyone but the black assailant: “Was deadly force necessary?”…“Why didn’t Officer Van Houten’s backup team, following in a station wagon, intervene to prevent the beating and killing?”…“Why would [Edmund Perry] put his promising future at risk for a street crime?”
⁷

One might also have asked: “Why would an undercover cop shoot a black kid for no reason?” But that did not pique the
Times
’s curiosity.

Then, twenty-three witnesses corroborated the officer’s account in testimony to the grand jury. Some said that they heard Edmund planning the mugging with his brother Jonah, who was a sophomore at Cornell University. According to the district attorney, a “significant number” of witnesses said they saw the mugging. Other witnesses told the grand jury they heard Jonah saying his brother got shot when they were mugging a “D.T.” or “detective.”
⁸
God help Officer Van Houten if he had been mugged someplace other than a hospital parking lot with plenty of witnesses.

After considering the evidence, the grand jury cleared Van Houten of all wrongdoing and indicted Jonah for the mugging.

Needless to say, there would be no apology from the media for filling the air with accusations against a policeman. When the story first broke, everyone knew exactly where to place the blame. There was no tender search into a police officer’s troubles, no praise for his educational achievements, no vaporous sorrow about the strain of his job, no “puzzle” to be solved. The cop was a racist.…The end.

But when it turned out Van Houten was telling the truth and that Edmund Perry had in fact mugged him, delicate reporting was called for. The truth about Perry was revealed amid great sorrow. It was no one’s fault, but a problem of “confusion, frustration and pain” and “two worlds” colliding.
⁹

Bard College produced a play about the incident,
Purgatory
, about “a lonely black teen-ager who tries to live in two worlds, one black and one white.” One student explained, “I wanted to open people’s eyes to the fact that racism is still very much alive, although it’s not as visible.”
¹⁰

Again: PERRY MUGGED A COP.

For some journalists it was easier to deal with their grief by pretending they missed the news about all the witnesses supporting the cop’s account. Even after the indictments, for example, Dorothy J. Gaiter of the
Miami Herald
wrote about Edmund Perry in an article titled, “To Be Black and Male Is Dangerous in U.S.”
¹¹
Based on not having been there, seen anything, or been on the grand jury, but rather on having met Edmund once, she announced: “I can’t say whether he would do something that stupid.”