The appeals court decision came a few weeks after cops killed Georgy Louisgene, a 23-year-old Haitian worker in Brooklyn. New York cops James Muirhead and Joseph Thompson shot eight rounds at Louisgene, hitting him five times. The cops claim the youth, who weighed only 115 pounds, had charged them with a knife and a stick.

Louisgene's sister Abellard came to the protest with several others who support the fight to win justice in the case. "My brother did not deserve to be shot eight times," she told the Militant. "We are working with our lawyers and pursuing our legal options. But above all we are going to fight until the cops who killed Georgy are behind bars," she said.

Tony Morales, whose nephew was shot five times by cops who claimed that he was robbing a store, said, "I was outside my house and the march passed by me. I heard someone saying Louima so I joined it."

"There is something fishy going on," said Jensen Desrosiers, a drummer in the band at the club where Louima was arrested. He said the decision would reinforce a widely held perception in the Haitian community that police officers can get away with hurting Haitians. "If there's a Haitian involved, the cops are going to be much quicker to pull the trigger," he said.

In August 1997 Louima was arrested by several cops outside a nightclub in Brooklyn. They beat him while yelling racist slurs, then drove him to the 70th police precinct where they tortured him, forcing a broken broomstick up his rectum and causing severe internal injuries.

The assault sparked outrage and protests by Haitians and other working people in New York demanding an end to police brutality, justice for Louima, and the firing of all police officers from the 70th precinct involved in the assault and cover-up.

The demonstrations forced the city prosecutors to press criminal charges. In the end, officer Justin Volpe, the main defendant in the case, pleaded guilty to assaulting Louima with the broomstick. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison on charges of aggravated sexual assault, first degree assault, and a series of civil rights violations. His sentencing will not be affected by the appeal court's decision and he will remain in jail.

Charles Schwarz was convicted and given 15 years for holding Louima down during the attack. Two other cops, Thomas Wiese and Thomas Bruder, were sentenced to five years for conspiring to obstruct justice.

The court held that Schwarz was denied a fair trial because his lawyer, Stephen Worth, had a conflict of interest in also representing the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association. Along with being Bruder's lawyer, Worth had been hired to represent the cop association in a multimillion-dollar civil suit Louima filed against them.

Although the prosecution argued that Worth could not represent Schwarz because of the conflict of interest, the judge allowed Schwarz to continue with his lawyer at his own request. The court also ruled that not enough evidence had been presented in the cases of Bruder and Wiese to prove that a conspiracy to obstruct a federal grand jury from proceeding had taken place. The Times reported that the court ruling had noted there had been "abundant evidence at the trial of phone calls, meetings, and other contacts among the officers, all of it suggestive of a conspiracy to cover up what had happened," but not enough to prove the specific charge against them.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg told a church congregation in Brooklyn he had visited cops from the 70th precinct and told them that "what happened five years ago was a disgrace, it was intolerable [and] we have to take steps to make sure it never happens again."

"But also I said to them that they should be proud of the job that they do on the police force," he added. "These are members of the community and they brought crime down. And we want to continue that."

Schwarz could face a new trial on the charge of taking part in Louima's assault. The U.S. attorney's office in Brooklyn said that they are ready to retry the case. The other two officers face no further legal action.

Paul Pederson contributed to this article.  
 
 
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