By Craig Giammona
The bill, which will be debated in the near future on the floor of the state Assembly, was part of a legislative police reform package created by the Black, Puerto Rican, Latino and Asian caucus in the wake of the 1999 police shooting of Amadou Diallo.The entire package of bills has routinely passed the Assembly in the years since the unarmed Diallo was fatally shot by police on a Bronx street in 1999. But the bills have died in the Republican-controlled state Senate just as routinely, Assembly Democrats said this week.In recent weeks, local elected officials have sought to bring attention to the police reform bills, and particularly the component requiring alcohol and drug testing for officers who have fired their weapons. Bell, who was unarmed, was killed outside Kalua Cabaret in downtown Jamaica on Nov. 25.”It speaks directly to this case,” state Assemblyman Bill Scarborough (D-St. Albans) said recently. “One of the main questions is the conditions of the officers.”The night Bell was killed, a team of officers, including two plainclothes detectives had gone to Jamaica in an attempt to close down Kalua, a strip club with a history of drug and prostitutions arrests. The NYPD allows undercover officers to have two alcoholic beverages while they are working, but if they then discharge their weapons, they are not tested for drugs or alcohol. Scarborough pointed out that the officer who fired first at Bell had been drinking.”The other officer joined in after that,” he said.Assemblyman Jose Peralta (D-Jackson Heights), a co-sponsor of the bill, concurred with Scarborough. “Everyone is dismissing the possibility that the officer was drunk,” he said. “If you discharge your weapon, you should be tested.”The bill would require officers to be tested within three hours of the shooting incident, a common practice Peralta said in any other profession.”If you're a driver and you have an accident, you are tested,” He said.Peralta and Scarborough both acknowledged that police unions are adamantly opposed to the bill, which has already been submitted for the current legislative session. And with Republicans controlling the state Senate, the prospect of the bill passing is fairly slim, they said.Still, the drug and alcohol testing bill, along with others from the original package will be taken up this session. Scarborough said one of the other bills would require officers in urban areas to live in the cities where they work. Another bill would allow the governor to ask the state attorney general to investigate allegations of police misconduct, taking the responsibility for the cases away from local district attorneys.Reach reporter Craig Giammona by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 146.
