Fearing that she may not have been recognized lately or quoted sufficiently by the NYC press corp, by Justice Department bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., and by the Democrat Party, and also having been overshadowed by her counterpart in Brooklyn handling the Louima Case, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York MARY JO WHITE has reached back THREE YEARS to find an Amtrak Police Officer to indict this month for alledgedly hitting a homeless individual in Penn Station in 1995!
What makes this indictment all that more ridiculous is that an internal Amtrak investigation cleared POLICE OFFICER FRANK SANTOS of the charges and placed him back to full-duty, and the Manhattan District Attorney (who is always quick to jump on these "PC" anti-cop capers) didn't even touch the case!
The story of Officer Santos' dilemma appeared in the July 16th edition of the New York Times. Despite all the big announcements by White, no one from the US Attorney's Office could supply the details of the allegation against the cop and could only give a general statement regarding "civil rights" to the press. As the Times puts it:
"But the United States Attorney's office disclosed few details about the case, including the nature of Mr. Wright's (the alledged victim) injuries, what provoked the altercation or why the case received little attention at the time."
Officer Santos' attorney, Mitchell A. Golub, is quoted in the article as saying: "Frankly, I thought this was a closed situation." The Coalition for the Homeless, a homeless advocacy group heading by Mary Brosnahan, stated that they had not even heard of the case.
The Times, however, goes out of its way to fill up space in the story, by trying to draw connections with the PO MEYER case and LIVOTI case.
Why would Ms. White, the US Attorney, find it necessary to generate such press releases? Why hadn't she taken into consideration the fact that both Amtrak cleared Santos and the Manhattan DA never bothered with this case? One would have to ask her. But let's look at the big picture:
The United States Attorney JANET RENO is coming under a great deal a fire down in D.C. and her left hand twitches more now than it had in the recent past from her palsy condition. Reno was just called before a Senate committee to defend her inactions with the China money connections, and the Senators are getting sick and tired of her staid and scripted answers to their pointed questions. She was also chastised by the US Appeals Court for trying to run interference for Bill Clinton, and a recently leaked letter to Reno from FBI Director Freeh makes Janet look like a jerk as well as an incompetent attorney.
All this, one can assume, could make Mary Jo say to herself,"What's Reno got that I haven't got...?" So, with that, Officer Santos is caught in the stepping stones to the Justice Department. Ms. White may just be standing by, taking a few practice swings like a batter that's on deck, waiting to get up to the plate in case Reno takes a walk...or strikes out.
So another cop becomes a pawn on the chess board of political correctness and political expediency.
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