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Vol. 71/No. 25      June 25, 2007

 
N.Y. jury: Cop 'responsible'
for killing African American
 
BY SALM KOLIS  
NEW YORK, June 10—“This proves that you can fight the system,” Juanita Young told the Militant today. She was referring to the verdict handed down three days earlier in a Bronx civil court that found Louis Rivera, the cop who killed her son, Malcolm Ferguson, “100 percent responsible” for the March 2000 fatal shooting.

The jury awarded Young $10.45 million for the wrongful death of her son.

Ferguson, a 23-year-old African American, was shot in the left temple, at point blank range, just blocks from the vestibule where Amadou Diallo, an African immigrant, was killed by cops in 1999 in a hail of 41 bullets. A week before his murder, Ferguson had been arrested and charged with resisting arrest while participating in a protest of the acquittals of the four cops who killed Diallo.

During his testimony at the trial, Rivera admitted he knew Ferguson was unarmed. Rivera remains an active duty cop, working a desk job, and no longer carries a gun.

“I’m happy to prove my son’s innocence. Now I want the district attorney to bring criminal charges against Rivera,” said Young. “It was the people, the protests, that brought this case to trial. I received very little support from politicians.”

Demonstrations demanding justice for Ferguson were part of mobilizations of thousands in the spring of 2000 condemning police brutality. Throughout this period, then-mayor Rudolph Giuliani consistently defended the cops, vilified the victims, and refused to prosecute any of the police officers involved.

Messages of support flooded in from around the country, reported Young. Supporters who came to attend the trial included Margarita and Tony Rosario, whose son Anthony and nephew Hilton Vega were killed in 1995 by cops in the Bronx; Nicholas Hayward Sr., whose 13-year-old son, Nicholas Hayward Jr., was killed in 1994 by housing police in Brooklyn; and Lynne Stewart, a New York attorney currently appealing her 2005 frame-up conviction on charges of “conspiracy to provide material support to terrorist activity.”

During the trial, the press emphasized Ferguson’s arrest record and allegations that he was carrying heroin at the time he was killed. The city Law Department announced plans to appeal the verdict.

“As long as police brutality continues, I will be out there protesting and trying to stop killer cops from hiding behind their badges,” said Young, who has consistently spoken out against police brutality and has participated in and spoken at many demonstrations on this question. “This case was never about the money. I wanted this cop exposed as a murderer.”  
 
 
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