By The Associated Press
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — Manslaughter, rape, assault. A recent spate of allegations against police officers on the outskirts of New York City has raised fears that a big-city problem has invaded the suburbs.
''You don’t want this to go on anywhere but you certainly don’t expect it in the suburbs,’' said Alicia Barnes of White Plains, a mother of 2-year-old twins.
Experts agreed, however, that the suburbs are not immune.
''Law enforcement in the suburbs is only as good as the patchwork of police departments that exists in each county,’' said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union.
''It takes proper oversight and accountability to ensure that the police are our friends, our protectors, and not bullies who think they are above the law.’'
The cluster of cases over the past year in Westchester County may be an aberration, but even a partial list seems shocking in this relatively affluent and quiet New York City suburb:
--A Mount Kisco officer was charged with manslaughter in the death of a homeless, drunken immigrant who had suffered a blow to his abdomen. The officer has resigned and is fighting the charge, but the case has raised tensions about immigration and revealed a practice of police departments ''dumping’’ their undesirables in neighboring towns.
--A New Rochelle sergeant, husband of a local TV anchorwoman, has been charged with forcibly raping a 17-year-old girl.
--The Justice Department is investigating allegations of brutality in Yonkers and Sleepy Hollow, where officers used a stun gun on a 16-year-old suspected of stealing a bicycle.
--County officers killed an armed, off-duty Mount Vernon cop who was trying to make an arrest in White Plains. A grand jury cleared the officers, who apparently did not know Officer Christopher Ridley was a policeman, but some black leaders say he might not have been shot if he were white.
--Two off-duty New York City officers were accused of assaulting a man outside a Yonkers bar, and two colleagues were accused of attempting a cover-up.
James McCabe, who retired from the NYPD as an inspector and now teaches criminal justice at Sacred Heart University, said the litany of cases ''certainly sounds alarming, but we don’t know enough to say if this is a trend.’' Serious police crimes are very rare exceptions, he said.
Lieberman wondered if training was at fault.
But McCabe, who lectures at Westchester’s police academy, said training in ethics, cultural sensitivity and use of force have all been kept at a high level.
New Rochelle’s police commissioner, Patrick Carroll, said his recruits go through psychological screening, interviews and background checks. After they’re on the job, officers are continually retrained on ethics and integrity.
''We have a very thorough vetting process,’' Carroll said. ''Unfortunately, sometimes there are cracks that people fall into.’'
Recruits at the Westchester academy, which is used by all the county’s police departments, now spend two days on ethical behavior. They also have a day devoted to cultural awareness, covering race, ethnicity and religion.
Michael White, who teaches at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan, said recruiting has been a problem recently, even in suburbs that pay better than New York City.
''If you have open positions that absolutely have to be filled, there is a tendency to lower your standards a bit,’' he said.
But he believes that some incidents are just a matter of statistics.
''The more police officers you have and the more citizens there are, the more encounters you have and the greater the opportunity for something bad to happen,’' he said.
That would explain why people think of police violence as something more common in big cities, he said -- that and recent cases in which NYPD officers fired 50 times and 41 times at unarmed civilians.
Westchester, with a population of just under 1 million, has 2,500 to 3,000 law enforcement officers.
McCabe believes police crime, like other crime, is on the decline.
''As crime comes down around the United States, there’s less violence, there’s less danger for the police, there’s safer communities,’' he said. ''That gives the police the chance to build bridges.’'