A Cautionary Tale
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
What a cautionary tale for the grand jury in Queens considering whether to return a true bill against the police officers who killed Sean Bell: two days in New York that saw two auxiliary police officers shot and killed and three other officers injured in three other incidents — one stabbed, one shot, and one thrown through a plate glass window. If the Queens grand jury hasn’t yet heard enough evidence to determine that the officers who let loose 50 shots against Bell should not be indicted for murder, let them contemplate the corpses of the auxiliary police officers slain on Wednesday night in Greenwich Village, Nicholas Pekearo and Yevgeniy Marshalik.
We’re not arguing that the risks New York City police officers face on the job every day justify the killing of unarmed noncriminals. Nor that police officers should not stick to the rules of engagement and procedures of their department. Nor even that the risks excuse errors. But the risks faced by Pekearo and Marshalik have been out there every day for the officers involved in the Sean Bell tragedy, and the flurry of violence directed at this city’s finest, just as the grand jury deliberates, is a timely reminder of the benefit of the doubt that, in our view, should attach to officers in these cases, particularly when the question is criminal liability.
As auxiliary officers, Pekearo and Marshalik were unarmed, a fact that should give pause to any who suggest responding to the Bell shooting by disarming the police. It would make them only more vulnerable, without making the rest of New Yorkers any safer. In the meantime, we await the candlelight vigils and marches by civil-rights leaders, such as the Reverend Jesse Jackson, who showed up after the Bell shooting. Where is Jesse Jackson to console the families of Pekearo and Marshalik? The vast majority of New Yorkers stand with the slain officers and all of those still serving who put their lives on the line every day when they go to work. New Yorkers honor their sacrifices, which are in the cause of protecting us all.
