Tomorrow, on the day Sean Bell’s daughter turns four years old, Rev. Al Sharpton and others will silently march down Fifth Avenue to protest police misconduct in minority communities and press City Hall to implement changes they say were supposed to be in place after the killing of Amadou Diallo.
Sharpton said everything from the 50 shots fired at Sean Bell to a double parking ticket given to Rev. Calvin Butts weeks earlier are “indicative of a problem that is a pattern in this city” with the police department.
Butts referred to some officers as “ignorant savages” who are “culturally ignorant” and “racially insensitive.”
Noting that the officers involved in the Sean Bell killing were black, Hispanic and white, Sharpton said, “If they were all black, we would be marching tomorrow.”
— Azi Paybarah
UPDATE: In response to the Butts comments, mayoral spokesman Stu Loeser said, “We don’t dignifiy remarks like that with a response.”
