Officer Is Cleared in Mass Arrests at 2004 G.O.P. Convention

[Breeze54]

Officer Is Cleared in Mass Arrests at 2004 G.O.P. Convention

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/01/nyregion/01rnc.html?ref=politics

By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS
Published: March 1, 2007

The Manhattan district attorney’s office has found that there is no basis to prosecute a city police inspector for perjury or any other offense related to arrests at protest rallies during the 2004 Republican National Convention.

In a letter faxed yesterday to the New York Civil Liberties Union, James M. Kindler, chief assistant district attorney, said that his office had looked into the group’s complaint that police officers had not given hundreds of demonstrators proper warnings to disperse before arresting them, and that a police inspector had lied about whether such warnings had been given.

Mr. Kindler said his office took the complaint seriously because of the gravity of the allegations and the importance of basing criminal prosecutions on accurate information.

But, he said in his letter, “After careful consideration, we have concluded that the evidence does not support or warrant a prosecution for perjury or any other offense.”

In response to Mr. Kindler’s letter, Christopher Dunn, associate legal director of the civil liberties union, said yesterday, “The fact that most of the cases were later dismissed does nothing to undo the harm to those who were falsely arrested and prosecuted, nor does it allay our concerns about false statements by police officials about the circumstances of convention arrests.”

The investigation grew out of a letter that the civil liberties group sent last March to Robert M. Morgenthau, the Manhattan district attorney, suggesting that the Police Department may have provided false information to prosecute people arrested in demonstrations on East 16th Street near Union Square and on Fulton Street, near the World Trade Center site, in August 2004.

Those were, according to the civil liberties union, the largest mass arrests during the convention; nearly 400 people were arrested at East 16th Street.

More at link...