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Community of interest?

Thursday, March 22, 2007

As the media were building to a frenzy around the arraignment of undercover New York policemen for the killing of Sean Bell (pictured far left - with Nicole Paultrie, whom he was supposed to marry hours after his fatal bachelor night out) my attention was captured by a phrase from somewhere else entirely. A media business reporter was recalling how one of NBC Universal’s favorite program-makers, Aaron Sorkin had lashed out in a West Wing script against “hysterical communities” online.

What - I found myself asking - does the once-comforting notion of “a community” mean any more, in this era of excitable journalism and a still juvenile, hyperactive blogosphere?

While I’ve lived in the distinctive (no, unique) community of New York City for some sixteen years now, I’m still occasionally bemused in a very British manner by the way that press, radio, TV and now internet commentary can run wild about a case like Detectives Michael Oliver (pictured above right) and Gescard Isnora facing manslaughter charges and Detective Marc Cooper’s charge of reckless endangerment.

I cite my British background because, while a controversial criminal matter may well set aflame Britain’s bars, coffee shops and private dinner tables with fascinated and angry discussion, the moment that an individual is charged with a crime, all of the UK’s media must legally fall silent. This is a national rule applying to one enormous “community” – it’s designed to avoid legal prejudice against the accused, of course, and is aimed at avoiding any prejudicial taint in a prospective jury-pool (one that I guess must amount to about 20 million people).

Here in the US, the rules are obviously much looser, but the established convention in cases against law-enforcement officers (and oh yes, such a convention exists, if only because too many police killings, particularly of minority-population victims, have created it) is that the accused cops maintain a low media profile.

Ready to speak for these NYPD detectives, though, and ready to scatter all sorts of prejudicial material about Sean Bell, his friends and his background, is Michael Palladino, President of the city's Detectives Endowment Association. One of his first tactical moves, after standing bail for both Oliver and Isnora, was to raise the possibility of their defense team pressing for the trial’s removal out of the borough of Queens, because of negative publicity accruing around his members.

Palladino told the local ABC TV owned-and-operated local affiliate, WABC’s program Eyewitness News: "This union will leave no stone unturned. We will examine all of our options, including a change of venue."

We should perhaps remember that in 1991 after the unarmed West African immigrant Amadou Diallo was killed in a hail of 41 NYPD bullets, the trail was moved from New York City to the state capital, Albany, because - it was said at the time - of prejudicial media coverage. The accused officers in that case ended up being acquitted of criminal charges.

Two other sides in the multifaceted case of Sean Bell’s death (and injuries to two friends) are using the media to resist such a move. Rev Al Sharpton, who has been advising and often speaking for the Bell family, told the Gotham Gazette that any attempt to move the trial was “insulting” and added, “We will not participate, attend or cooperate with a trial outside of Queens.”

The Queens District Attorney Richard Brown also made a claim of special virtue for the local community as the right place to keep the trial – on interestingly phrased grounds: “This is where public opinion is equally divided, in my opinion” said Brown. “The jury should be representative of the diversity of this county.”

MEANWHILE RUPERT MURDOCH’S GOTHAM PROPERTY, the New York Post, has been doing its usual best to ignore any niceties of pre-trail coverage.

Under a headline that was surely designed to echo the fusillade of 50 gunshots in which Sean Bell was killed - “HAVIN’ A BLAST” - the paper carried an exclusive picture story about Detective Oliver enjoying a meal at the model-and-film-star hangout, Nello – flanked unoriginally by a blonde and a brunette.

Six reporters contributed to the full-page spread which, among other salient details, broke down the evening’s attention-getting bill of $4,241.50 into its various elements, like four servings of pasta with truffles at $180 each, and five bottles of Brunello di Montalcino at $575 a pop.

The Post was employing all its weaponry of modern celebrity-hounding, including the photographer Mario Magnani, who’s more noted for on-location movie work, snapping the likes of Billy Crystal and Robert De Niro. In this case he was working with the paparazzi agency Bauer-Griffin, run from Los Angeles by veteran British rock-and-roll lensman Frank Griffin and native New Yorker shutterbug Randy Bauer. Bauer-Griffin is known for operating a database of more than 500 celebrities’ license plates, home addresses, and private airplanes’ tail-numbers, and for running an impressive network of well-placed, well-paid sources, ranging from valet parking attendants to maitres-d’ and hotel clerks.

After seeing the explosion of acidic blogging (much of it posted in New York, of course) that the Post’s report has sparked off, I am now, in the faux-naif catch-phrase of that tabloid's own gossip maven Cindy Adams, “just wondering” … Could the Post be influencing opinion among its community in a way that, at first glance, appears unfriendly to a prosecuted police officer – but which could, if it builds, prove extremely helpful in the end.