No Thank-You Note, but Several Lawsuits for a Pepper-Spraying Inspector

The Day September 25, 2012, 9:08 am

By CLYDE HABERMAN

Never mind the celebratory demonstrations last week. This Monday was the important anniversary for Occupy Wall Street. On that day a year ago, the movement truly kicked into gear. It owed an enormous debt to a police deputy inspector named Anthony Bologna, who has received not a word of thanks for having put it on the map.

The Day

Clyde Haberman offers his take on the news.

We're not saying that Occupy would never have taken off without Inspector Bologna. But he gave it a mighty jump start last Sept. 24 when he strode up to protesters - young women who had already been corralled by officers, were doing nothing more grievous than shouting, were presenting no threat - and blasted them with pepper spray. Then he walked insouciantly away.

A video of that scene, with women crumpling to the sidewalk and crying in pain, became an Internet sensation. The image of one of them, Kaylee Dedrick, quickly reached iconic status. Vast numbers of people in New York and beyond, even if they may not have admired Occupy or its message, felt they had witnessed a gratuitous exercise of police power. Faster than you could say “we are the 99 percent,” the movement took wing.

But have its people paid tribute to the inspector for making them contenders? Not that we know of.

On the contrary, protesters keep suing him, one after another. Eight of them have resorted to lawsuits thus far, with the latest one filed in Ms. Dedrick's behalf on Monday, the anniversary, in Federal District Court in Manhattan.

< p> Amid all those suits, wouldn't it have been only proper for one of them to send along a note of appreciation?

“That, of course, is right,” said Ms. Dedrick's lawyer, Ron L. Kuby. “You know,” he instantly added, “in precisely the same sense, although a less grand sense, that Rosa Parks should have sent flowers to the cop who arrested her, and Governor Wallace should have received thanks et cetera, et cetera.”

Kidding aside, Mr. Kuby said the reason behind suing the inspector was “legitimate concern about what he might do in the future to other people - he seems a bit tightly wound and quick to anger.”

The lawyer said he would have preferred for the Manhattan district attorney to pursue a criminal case, but that hasn't happened. So he turned to federal court, one of his goals being to see that the city is held responsible for “this man's series of misdemeanors.”

For now, the city isn't feeling terribly responsible, though th at could always change.

In the first lawsuit against Inspector Bologna, filed in February by two women who said they, too, had been pepper-sprayed, the city's Law Department chose not to defend him. That decision did not please the police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, who criticized it last month as potentially having “a chilling effect on police officers taking action.”

But the city's chief lawyer, Corporation Counsel Michael A. Cardozo, replied that his hands were tied by state law. The Police Department itself, he noted, had determined that the inspector didn't follow guidelines on pepper-spray use. It docked him 10 vacation days, and exiled him to Staten Island. (No offense meant when we say “exiled,” Staten Island, but that transfer hardly qualified as a supportive pat on the back.)

“State law prohibits the city from representing or indemnifying city employees who are found to have violated agency rules and regulations,” Mr. Cardozo s aid in a statement.

Whether that will be his position in three other suits brought since February, including Ms. Dedrick's, remains to be determined. “Everything would be on a case-by-case basis,” said a department spokeswoman, Kate O'Brien Ahlers.

Should you happen to be wondering, the Law Department doesn't routinely tell beleaguered police officers that they must fend for themselves. Take federal civil rights cases brought against the police. By the department estimates, fewer than 5 percent of them lead to a decision to not represent officers.

For all we know, others may be lining up to take their turn at pursuing Inspector Bologna in the courts. If so, they might also want to take a moment to recall what their movement owes him and his can of pepper spray. Hey, by now there may even be an e-card to tell him thanks for the memory.