Bell Second-Guessing

To the Editor:

I am sitting here reading the letter to the editor from Michael Gorman (March 30 issue) and I can't believe this guy. Just because a spokesman may call an incident - be it the Diallo case or the Bell case - a "mistake" does not make the police officers involved guilty of anything.

It may in fact be determined that what happened on that night in Queens was a mistake; however, that does not make the officers guilty of anything criminally or administratively. To suggest otherwise is irresponsible.

Were you there, Mr. Gorman? Do you know what happened on that night? The answer to both of these questions is no. As a police officer, did you ever work on patrol? Did you ever have the occasion to discharge your weapon anywhere but the range? Did you ever have the occasion to even draw your weapon, and were you fully cognizant of all the circumstances when you did so?

Police officers in the street must react based on training and instinct. Those that don't are buried with Inspector's funerals. They don't need second-guessers such as yourself questioning and condemning their actions. The fact that you suggest that their penalties should be administrative rather than criminal indicates you think you are doing them a favor. Have you even considered for one minute that they are completely innocent?

Mr. Gorman as an attorney and a former member of the Police Department should know that these officers could have been and probably were acting on what they reasonably believed to be the case: that they were under attack from an armed man. And the fact that it turned out not to be so does not make their actions wrong and therefore subject to any sanction.

If you want to see the system of discipline changed, so be it, but in your quest, don't condemn police officers who may very well be innocent of any wrongdoing.

WILLIAM L. McKECHNIE