MICHAEL O. ALLEN

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Al Sharpton

Living ‘Black’ in the United States of America

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And living to tell the tales.

Traffic was heavy on Route 17 in Hasbrouck Heights on my way home to Ridgewood, NJ, after work on Wednesday, which wasn’t exactly news. But, as I approached a stretch where Route 46 and Interstate 80 go over Route 17, traffic eased and I saw the reason why. Rubbernecking motorists.

What were they looking at?

A black man with both hands on top of his head standing in front of a white police officer on the grassy area next to the shoulder. The cop’s car, lights flashing, and another car in front of it were parked on the shoulder. Unlike Alton Sterling on Tuesday or Philando Castile on Wednesday, this black man stopped by a white cop was still alive.

James Eagan Holmes, heavily armed, killed 12 and injured 70 people in a Colorado theater and was captured alive. Dylann Roof killed nine churchgoers in South Carolina and was captured alive. Jason Dalton killed six and injured two in Kalamazoo. His life was preserved as he was being arrested.

Cedric Chatman. Tamir Rice. Laquan McDonald. Eric Garner. Michael Brown. Black men make up 6% of U.S. population; are 40% of people killed by police.

He’s lucky to be alive, I thought as I drove on. Was that too sanguine a response to the situation?

Jesse Williams Speaking out

I am not taking the situation lightly. I’ve lived long enough to be a middle-aged black male despite too many tangles with cops, both in the United States of America and elsewhere, to do that. But, as these killings pile up, becoming more and more common each day, I’ve long realized that I’ve been lucky to still be alive to tell tales of encounters with cops.

My narrow escape from racist Afrikaners in 1994, while on assignment for the New York Daily News in South Africa, is an entirely different story that will be told a different day. Not today. Also, it’s available on the Internet for anyone curious enough to want to find out.

St. Louis, MO in the ’80’s

A police car pulled up behind my car as I eased into traffic after a college friend and I left a bar late one night many years ago. He pulled me over. The cop came up to the car, peered in, then instructed me to step out. I did. He said that he had stopped me for suspected drunk driving because he had observed me weaving in and out of traffic. I protested that I did no such thing and that, in any case, I couldn’t be drunk driving since I had not been drinking.

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July 9, 2016
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Diallo Kin ‘Refuse to Lose Hope’ By PATRICE O’SHAUGHNESSY, Daily News Staff Writer

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nullSunday, April 29, 2001

Amadou Diallo’s parents expressed anguish yesterday over the Police Department’s exoneration of the four cops who killed their son, and urged supporters to “refuse to lose hope.”

“Whoever said [the cops] have done nothing wrong, they are wrong,” said Diallo’s mother, Kadiatou. “I am saying to Mayor Giuliani the decision is wrong, I am saying to the police commissioner the decision is wrong … let’s make changes to prevent this from happening again.”

Amadou Diallo’s parents speak out at Al Sharpton’s Harlem headquarters.
Kadiatou and Saikou Diallo flanked the Rev. Al Sharpton at his Harlem headquarters to denounce Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik’s decision Friday to put the cops back on the job — without guns or badges, but without punishment — based on the findings of two police panels that deemed the fatal shooting of the unarmed man a mistake.

“They are letting the police go free to kill and kill,” Saikou Diallo said.

Sharpton announced plans to compile a record of incidents of racial profiling, arbitrary stop-and-frisks and other interaction between cops and minority groups to build a civil class-action suit against the NYPD.

He also said the black community will target an unnamed major corporation that supports the police union.

Sharpton derided Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen for approving one of the cops, Edward McMellon, as a firefighter candidate and promised to protest at FDNY headquarters in Brooklyn.

“This week we will prepare for a huge visit to the Fire Department,” Sharpton said.

Meanwhile, Giuliani reiterated support for Kerik’s decision.

“The reality of the Diallo case is that it was tragic and horrible,” the mayor said on John Gambling’s WABC radio show.

“A mixed jury of four blacks and eight whites concluded that. As did the Clinton Justice Department, when they decided not to pursue a civil rights case. And that’s what the police panel concluded.

“All these people can’t be wrong. … You have to willing to adjust your attitude in the face of reality.”

With Michael O. Allen

April 29, 2001
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Rudy Probes His Own Campaign

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

February 17, 1997

by BOB LIFF and MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writers

Mayor Giuliani’s reelection campaign has launched internal audits to determine whether any corporate contributors gave donations that exceeded the $7,700 limit allowed by the city’s public campaign finance law.

Campaign officials disclosed the reviews after the Daily News reported that a company that landed a lucrative recycling contract gave $77,500 to Giuliani’s reelection drive after concluding the deal.

Campaign treasurer John Gross described the audits as a regular process designed to insure that Giuliani does not violate campaign finance laws as he runs for a second term.

Based on an initial review, Gross and Giuliani said they did not believe any other givers had contributed amounts above the $7,700 limit.

“I’m not aware of it,” Giuliani said yesterday, adding that his campaign “returns money any time there are questions.”

The campaign pledged to refund all of the contributions made by Pratt Industries U.S.A. after the Daily News reported that the firm got a no-bid city contract to build a $250 million recycling plant on Staten Island. The deal calls for the firm to process up to half the discarded newspaper and wastepaper in the city.

Giuliani yesterday dismissed the company’s excess contributions as “technical violations” of the campaign finance law, which gives taxpayer-funded contributions to candidates who agree to abide by limits on their private fund-raising.

The law bars companies and subsidiaries they control from giving a total of more than $7,700 to a single candidate who accepts public campaign funds.

The News reported on Saturday that the firm and nine subsidiaries began making contributions to Giuliani in January 1996, two weeks after reaching the recycling deal with the Giuliani administration.

City officials said there was no connection between the contract award and the political contributions, and Gross said the campaign discovered the overpayments and initiated refunds without any prompting.

“Anyone who would like to investigate our finances can have at it,” Gross said.

But three Democrats vying for the nomination to challenge Giuliani in November called for an investigation of the Pratt contributions.

The three, Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer, Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messinger and the Rev. Al Sharpton, charged that the contributions raised questions about Giuliani’s fund-raising.

“This looks like the worst kind of government quid pro quo since the corruption scandals that United States Attorney Giuliani uncovered nearly a dozen years ago,” Ferrer said.

Giuliani fired back, accusing the Democrats of using the issue for political purposes.

Original Story Date: 02/17/97

February 17, 1997
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Rudy Sez He’s Tops, And Dems Are Flops

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

November 9, 1996

by DAVID L. LEWIS and MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writers

Mayor Giuliani fired the opening salvo of the 1997 mayoral battle yesterday, slamming potential challengers as inexperienced, extremist or “machine politicians.”

While insisting he hasn’t decided to seek a second term, the Republican mayor for the first time dropped his strategic refusal to rate the chances of possible opponents.

Giuliani also touted his own political strengths, saying any reelection campaign would focus on double-digit decreases in city crime rates during his tenure.

“When I say it’s the capital of the world, which I began saying in my inaugural speech, people now accept it,” the mayor said in an interview set to air tomorrow on WCBS-TV’s “Sunday Edition.”

Giuliani criticized six possible Democratic challengers who were listed in a recent Quinnipiac College poll. Several responded with sharp return attacks. Among his exchanges:

He tabbed Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messinger as the Democratic front-runner, and said: “Democratic primaries are won by the most extreme candidate and, ideologically, she is the most extreme of that group.”

Messinger spokesman Leland Jones voiced surprise at the sharpness of the attack just 72 hours after Election Day, saying, “It is a little surprising that the campaign hasn’t even started, and the mayor has already decided to go negative.”

Giuliani accused City Controller Alan Hevesi of politicizing his office and labeled the Queens Democrat “very much an old-fashioned machine partisan politician.”

Hevesi shrugged off the Giuliani attack. “He is simply trying to start another personal fight,” Hevesi said.

Giuliani labeled Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer as “very much the product of Bronx machine politics.” The mayor noted that Ferrer succeeded Stanley Simon, who went to prison for his conviction in a racketeering case prosecuted by Giuliani.

Ferrer did not respond to a request for comment.

Giuliani said former Police Commissioner William Bratton would be a weak mayoral candidate because of “inexperience in many, many other areas of government.” Bratton could not be reached for comment.

The mayor said two other candidates — City Councilman Sal Albanese (D-Brooklyn) and the Rev. Al Sharpton — wouldn’t stand a chance in a Democratic primary, much less against him.

Sharpton dismissed the attack and Albanese argued he was more qualified to be mayor than Giuliani.

Original Story Date: 11/09/96

November 9, 1996
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