Officers and Firemen Wore Blackface on Float, Officials Say
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Denouncing the float as a ''disgusting display of racism,'' Mayor Rudolph
W. Giuliani vowed to take quick and punitive action against any city
employee who might have been associated with the float.
Mr. Giuliani declined to identify the employees and where they worked,
saying it was premature and that several investigations were now under way.
But an official in the Giuliani administration, speaking on the condition of
anonymity, said, ''We have information that two firefighters and two police
officers were on the float.''
The incident unfolded on Monday, during an annual parade sponsored by the
Broad Channel Volunteer Fire Department and Ambulance Corps. The float,
believed to be the last of the parade, featured men cavorting in blackface,
at one point mimicking the killing of a black man in Texas, James Byrd Jr.,
who was dragged to his death behind a pickup truck last June. An amateur
videotape of the Queens parade was first broadcast on Tuesday on WCBS-TV.
The incident comes at a time of increasing tension between the Police
Department and minority groups, particularly blacks, who have said the
department has not done enough to counter racism in its ranks. Mayor
Giuliani and Police Commissioner Howard Safir have come under harsh
criticism just this week from black leaders disputing the actions of the
Police Department in ending a youth rally in Harlem on Saturday.
In the case of the Labor Day parade, the city's police and fire
departments, along with the Department of Investigation and the Human Rights
Commission, moved swiftly to investigate the actions of the people on the
float. The Queens District Attorney's office is also trying to determine
whether any state or civil rights laws were violated during the parade.
Richard A. Brown, the Queens District Attorney, cautioned that while he
found the tape ''repulsive and offensive,'' no one had been arrested.
On Monday, a group of about a dozen men were riding on the float, which
was called ''Black to the Future: 2098,'' in the annual parade in the Broad
Channel section of Queens. An estimated 3,000 spectators were on hand for
the mile-and-half parade on Cross Bay Boulevard.
City Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi was one of a half-dozen city officials
who attended the parade. But because thunderstorms ended the parade early,
Mr. Hevesi said he never saw the float. Still, after he viewed the footage
on television, Mr. Hevesi said he was shocked by what he saw and called it
''a despicable expression of mindless bigotry.''
As of last night, city officials and investigators had not identified
anyone involved in the incident. But at a news conference last night, four
people from the neighborhood -- who said they were not employees of the
Police or Fire Departments -- announced that they had been on the float and
apologized for their actions.
''They were guilty of acting in bad taste, but what they did was really
no different from what 'Saturday Night Live' or Howard Stern does,'' said
Robert DiDio, who, with Marvyn M. Kornberg, lawyers who represent the four
men. ''They're sorry if anyone took offense.''
The four men identified themselves as Timothy O'Connell, 28; Kenneth
Miller, 28; Teddy Rauert, 28, and Kevin Gill, 29, all of Broad Channel.
While they declined to say what they did for a living, they said they were
not city employees and were not affiliated with the Broad Channel Volunteer
Fire Department. They would not identify any of the other people on the
float.
The men also tried to distance themselves from what city officials
considered was the most offensive aspect of the float: parodying the murder
of Mr. Byrd, the black man dragged to his death in Texas.
Mr. DiDio said there was only one man who pretended to be dragged behind
the truck during Monday's parade, and he had done so without his clients'
prior knowledge.
The incident has apparently shaken the Broad Channel Volunteer Fire
Department. At least 10 people have threatened to burn or bomb the
department, prompting the department to ask for police assistance, said
Detective Robert Samuel, a Police Department spokesman.
Meanwhile, someone who identified himself as Dispatcher No. 450 from the
volunteer fire department said that none of its members were on the
offending float.
''We sponsored the parade, meaning we filed for the permit, and that's
it,'' the dispatcher said. ''Other than that, we don't control who shows up,
wearing what.''
In theory, it should not be that difficult, city officials say, to
determine who organized the float. According to Mr. Giuliani, the top
official of the Broad Channel department is a police officer, and a delegate
to the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association. As a result, Mr. Giuliani said,
he ''expects even more from him than we would from an ordinary citizen.''
City officials would not identify that officer.
So far, ''we haven't gotten that kind of cooperation,'' Mr. Giuliani
said. ''We'll do everything we can to try to put it out of business and put
it out of operation until they come forward, identify all the people that
were involved.''
Mr. DiDio said that the parade in Broad Channel, a quiet island community
south of Kennedy International Airport, has had a long tradition as a
freewheeling, anything-goes kind of open-air party, in which Jews, Asians
and gay people, among other groups, have been parodied. According to the
1990 census, all but about 1 percent of Broad Channel's 1,620 residents are
white; the census lists 23 Hispanic residents and no blacks or
Asian-Americans.
But the possibility that law enforcement personnel may have been involved
makes the parade a far more serious matter.
In recent years, the Police Department has been rocked by what many
perceive as racially motivated misconduct, including the attack on Abner
Louima in August 1997. In that incident, according to prosecutors, four
officers beat Mr. Louima, a Haitian immigrant, in a police car on the way to
the 70th Precinct station house, and two of the four tortured him after
arriving there.
One officer, Justin A. Volpe, has been accused of ramming a stick into
Mr. Louima's rectum and then into his mouth, inflicting major injuries. A
second officer, Charles Schwarz, has been accused of holding Mr. Louima down
during the attack.
And on Saturday, officers in riot gear clashed with participants in a
youth rally in Harlem. The rally, called the Million Youth March, had, even
before it occurred, been the subject of bitter words between the Mayor and
Khallid Abdul Muhammad, the organizer of the march.
Broad Channel is just three miles from Howard Beach, where a group of
whites attacked a black man in 1986, chasing him onto a highway, where he
was killed by a car. And the parade took place on Cross Bay Boulevard -- the
same street, though miles away, where the Howard Beach incident occurred.
Hoping to defuse the situation while condemning it, several black
leaders, led by the Rev. Al Sharpton, plan a prayer vigil on Saturday at
Macedonia Baptist Church in Rockaway Beach, Queens.
''It's deja vu for me,'' Mr. Sharpton said. ''It brings back bad
memories, but it also tells me we still have a lot of work to do.''
''From what we know, there are city employees involved,'' Mr.
Giuliani said last night, at the end of a town hall meeting in Bay Terrace,
Queens. ''And I would suggest to them that they come forward, tender their
resignation and leave city government, because if we catch them -- and I
suspect that we are going to catch some of them -- they are going to be
fired immediately.''
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