Rev. Al: Cut off cop cash

Rev. Al Sharpton: Cut off cop cash
BY STEPHANIE GASKELL Stephanie Gaskell
Tuesday, May 13th 2008, 4:00 AM
The Federal government should withhold millions of dollars in funding to the NYPD unless the department can prove itdoesn't discriminate against blacks, the Rev. Al Sharpton said Monday.
"You gotta hit them in the pocket and let them know we mean business," Sharpton said during a community forum in lower Manhattan "Cut the money off, and they'll take you seriously."
The hearing, led by House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.), was billed as a community forum on law enforcement accountability in the wake of the verdicts in the Sean Bell case.
Bell was shot and killed by police on Nov. 25, 2006, as he left a strip club in Queens the morning of his wedding.
Sharpton said federal funding to police departments across the country should be contingent on their policies.
"They would have to explain why there's a continued racial disparity in stop-and-frisks, in arrests, in brutality claims, and why the top echelons of the NYPD are still disproportionately against what the population is," Sharpton said.
Bell's parents; his fiancée, Nicole Paultre Bell, and his friend Joseph Guzman attended the hearing, but made only brief remarks urging the panel to make changes to prevent another such shooting. --------nydailynews.com--posted by davidsradiotv2000 5-13-2008