NYPD Riot Action a Far Cry From Glory Days

During the turbulent ‘60s, when students burned draft cards, anti-Vietnam War protesters fought to close military induction centers and the streets of Manhattan regularly echoed with chants of “Out Now!,” the tactics of New York City’s Police Department were praised as a national model for crowd control.

Patience, coupled with a massive show of force, excellent communications and tight supervision by commanders over police manning the barricades, were hallmarks of the successful strategy.

Many of today’s police officers were toddlers then.

Complaints of Brutality

But this week, after a bloody clash over the closing of a Manhattan public park that injured more than 50 people and led to more than 70 complaints of police brutality, the department is appraising its performance.

The preliminary review by Commissioner Benjamin Ward has turned up a litany of mistakes, including an embarrassing failure to notify him until the riot in Tompkins Square Park was almost over. Mayor Edward I. Koch didn’t learn of the melee until much later.

Ward found that the besieged local commander decided to leave the scene at a critical time to go to the restroom at his station house, blocks from the fighting. A police helicopter that hovered too long overhead with lights to illuminate the scene only attracted bigger crowds. Officers failed to secure crucial rooftops and were subjected to a barrage of bottles and debris.

Police officers on horseback were brought to the scene too early and moved too quickly to confront protesters, Ward found. Commanders set up the temporary headquarters in the wrong place--right in the middle of the park. Officers unfamiliar with the area who rushed to the park from other sections of the city had to push their way through demonstrators to reach the headquarters. Once the police reached the mobilization point, they sometimes found no high-ranking officer on duty.

Management Was Missing

“They were handled poorly by their commanding officer, who disappeared to go to the bathroom. That’s bizarre,” Mayor Koch said on Thursday. “The managerial aspect of crowd control was missing at its most important moment.”

The police may also have acted on misinformation, moving too early against demonstrators because they believed motorists were trapped in the melee. And, for all the action, not very many arrests were made.

The trouble began when police tried to enforce a 1 a.m. curfew at the park on Sunday morning. Some civilians injured in the melee charged that it became a “police riot.” The most serious complaint was that some police covered their badge numbers with black tape and attacked passers-by indiscriminately.

Videotapes shot by amateur photographers at the scene--and repeated every day by local television stations--showed people being clubbed by officers with concealed badges.

“We’re better than this,” Ward said after promising a full investigation. “This was not even a large demonstration.”

Unnecessary Force

In an interview Thursday, Koch said that when he viewed the videotapes, it looked to him as if unnecessary force had been used. “There will have to be a hearing,” the mayor said.

“We have not had any need for crowd control of this kind,” Koch said, speaking from his car phone as the mayor’s limousine traveled to Gracie Mansion, his official residence. “(The police) were out of practice. Now, thank God, they have learned a lesson, and if they think it is necessary to use crowd control again, they will have a force comparable to the highest standards of the ‘60s. They had this moment in time which was regrettable and failed.”

” . . . They are all young people now. We have hired new classes (of policemen). . . . The vast majority of cops are youngsters, somewhere around 22 years old. The commanders retired.”

Tompkins Square Park, the scene of the confrontation on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, would be hard-pressed to win awards for community beautification or tranquility at almost any time. In recent years, as real estate values in Manhattan have soared, the area of small buildings and stores surrounding Tompkins Square has become a target for gentrification, and new quiet-living residents have clashed with drug pushers, punk-rock skinheads and teen-age drunks.

On Thursday afternoon, two policemen stood in the park as a tall woman in a red shirt complained to them that her former boyfriend was trying to follow her home and she was afraid he would beat her. Police separated the couple when they began to argue and later detained the man while the woman left. Nearby, while Parks Department employees welded a section of broken iron fence and drug addicts and winos sprawled on benches, children splashed in a small swimming pool.

Beggars, Bongo Player

A bongo player kept a slow beat in the 90-degree plus heat as a handball player moved slowly in stifling humidity. Beggars went through the formalities of asking for money, but didn’t bother rising from benches.

When police sought to impose the curfew because of complaints of late-night noise, protesters tossed bottles, rocks and fireworks at advancing officers, and the neighborhood became a battleground until dawn.

Later, citing the hot weather, Koch temporarily reversed the curfew order. The park has remained open, without serious incident. On Wednesday police commanders were to appear at a community forum to discuss the violence. When they failed to show up, some residents marched to the local precinct to protest. Meanwhile, Koch met with a group of community leaders at Gracie Mansion.

The mayor said members of the local community board told him that two groups who frequent the park are looking for a confrontation--20 to 30 anarchists who live in abandoned buildings “and are committed to class struggle” and a group of skinheads “who have biases against everybody.”

“These people who came to the mansion are very frightened,” Koch said.

The mayor said the plan this weekend is to continue keeping the park open all night, but to give summonses to and arrest people who make noise and to confiscate, if necessary, radios and musical instruments. Community observers will be in the park in an effort to prevent violence. And adequate police reserves will be stationed nearby in case of serious trouble.