Rudy Did It! Central Park II, Part Seven

By Nicholas Stix
June 22, 2000

(This isn’t about the brutal, racist, April 19, 1989 black and Hispanic mob attacks and robberies of whites, and rape of a white woman in Central Park; it’s about the brutal, racist, June 11, 2000 black and Hispanic mob attacks, robberies and rapes of white women in Central Park.)

Central Park II, Part Seven

Eric Adams is one black leader who was not afraid to speak out on Central Park. Adams explained that Rudy Giuliani had caused the riot, due to the Mayor's cuts in after-school programs and summer jobs. Adams ignored the fact that the economy is so flush, that jobs in businesses are wanting for workers this summer. And what on earth would after-school programs have to offer hardened street thugs, most of whom had stopped going to school many years ago?

But what do I know? Eric Adams is an expert on race. An NYPD lieutenant, and founder and head of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care (as opposed to "100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Don't Care"), a few years ago, Adams criticized City University of New York Board of Trustees Chairman Herman Badillo for not having married "his own kind." Badillo, who is Puerto Rican, had had the temerity to fall in love with, and marry a Jew. (The Badillos enjoyed a long, happy marriage that unfortunately ended with Mrs. Badillo's tragic death from cancer a couple of years after Eric Adams' attack.)

Recently, a veteran NYPD officer told me of when Adams became an NYPD supervisor. Adams had a black, female subordinate. A single mother, the woman used to bring her small child to the office. All was well, until Adams found out that the child's father was white, whereupon he forbade the woman from bringing the child to the office anymore. White NYPD officers have been terminated for much less.

And as late as two years ago, Eric Adams demanded that a federal civil rights investigation be opened on the Tawana Brawley case. Not to investigate, and possibly charge Brawley with making a false police report, and obstruction of justice. Rather, Adams was still insisting that Brawley had been raped! But what do I know? Eric Adams is the race expert.

But keep this in mind: Since Rudolph Giuliani's first election victory, in 1993, black supremacist Eric Adams has been one of the most influential, and certainly the most persistent voice calling for the handcuffing of the NYPD, or at least of white NYPD officers, and undermining morale on "the job," as New York cops call police work. When police were aggressive, Adams was the first to damn them. And when they backed off, he was, again, the first to damn them. Adams said that any NYPD officer who didn't respond immediately to reports of the Central Park wilding "should be terminated." This is the same Eric Adams who has demanded that black officers who fail drug tests NOT be terminated.

Adams must be pretty confident either that no black cops are in danger of being disciplined for the Central Park attacks, or that he has the muscle to prevent black cops from being disciplined.

The only major community leader to show any public virtue in response to the attacks was Bronx Borough President Fernando "Freddy" Ferrer, who condemned the attacks three days after they occurred:

"The sexual attacks on women in Central Park, Sunday, June 11, were hideous, vicious, depraved and dehumanizing.

"As a New Yorker, a Puerto Rican, a husband and a father, I am outraged by these crimes. There is no possible rationale for this kind of animal behavior. I am equally outraged by press reports that New Yorkers seeking help from police were ignored during the commission of these crimes.

"We must use all the tools at our disposal to see that the perpetrators of these despicable acts answer to society for this mindless rampage.

"Public officials have a responsibility to speak out and condemn these heinous crimes and urge anyone with knowledge of them to step forward to see that justice is done for the victims....

"Our city has been stained and degraded by these events, and public officials must bear the responsibility to rectify and heal, as much as humanely possible, the tremendous physical and psychological scars that the victims have suffered.

"These events should shock the conscience of every New Yorker, whatever their heritage, and especially shock Puerto Ricans and Latinos, because these crimes were committed during the very day New Yorkers were celebrating the hard work, the sacrifices and the contributions we have made to our society.

That's called leadership.

At the same press conference on Wednesday, June 14, Lorraine Cortes-Vazquez, who heads the Hispanic Federation, affirmed, "When the leaders of a community say, 'Not in my house you won't,' it's a very powerful message.

On the black side, we got Al Sharpton initiating a lawsuit, and Eric Adams blaming Mayor Giuliani.

On Friday, June 16, Sharpton announced that he would lead male-only teach-ins on the need to respect women, but that was just his fine sense kicking in of when it's time to jump on the bandwagon. Make no mistake: It's Freddy Ferrer's bandwagon; Rev. Al is just along for the ride.

Granted, Ferrer has not given up on his dream of becoming New York's first Puerto Rican mayor. In recent years, he has lost some intra-Hispanic political skirmishes in The Bronx, the point of which still eludes me, and more to the point, lost a number of journalistic patrons. While I am sure that Ferrer's political hopes motivated him to take his stand, had he followed the worn script of recent New York minority politics, he would have engaged in race-baiting demagoguery, instead of moral leadership.

A correction of the reporting on Ferrer's statement is necessary. On Friday, June 16, Daily News reporter Martin Mbugua wrote "At a press conference in Central Park on Wednesday, Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer said the 'mindless, dehumanizing attacks' fit the definition of hate crimes." When I asked Ferrer's press secretary, Javier Gomez, about the "hate crimes" statement, Gomez said that Ferrer wasn't talking about the Central Park rampage at all, but rather about a knife attack by a group of Hispanics on four Hasidim the night before the parade that left one Hasid in critical condition. While it's possible that Gomez was spinning the story, since I've caught Mbugua misrepresenting a story in the past, and have no history with Gomez, I'm willing to give the latter the benefit of the doubt this time.

Gomez responded to the charges by police of a double-standard at Hispanic and black ethnic parades, "Actually, it is our understanding that there is no double-standard, when it comes to police presence. The Borough President is very disturbed by press reports that police ignored victims, and has called for those allegations to be aggressively investigated. We don't want anyone to be discouraged from attending the parade in future years or next year. We definitely expect alternative measures next year, just to ensure that everything runs smoothly. But the Puerto Rican Day parade is a family event, and what happened Sunday is a disgrace."

The moment I heard about the June 11 attacks, I thought of another wilding attack, on April 19, 1989, which until the new attacks had been the most notorious such incident in the city's history. That would be the Central Park Jogger case, in which a white woman was beaten almost to death, and while unconscious, gang-raped by a black and Hispanic gang led by then 15-year-old Yusuf Salaam. (The main players, however, were black.) That case also was not treated as a racial case by the media or the authorities. The rapists were all convicted and served lengthy prison terms.