NY Daily News reporter MIKE McALARY died on Christmas morning, of colon cancer. He was only 41 years old. McAlary was the reporter that first reported the alleged Louima Incident, after he got an anonymous telephone call on his voice mail from someone reporting the incident in some detail. McAlary reported to everyone that it must have been another cop from the precinct on the phone, because of the terminology that the male caller used. But Prosay also heard some of the tape on a TV show highlighting McAlary after he won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting of the incident. We would have to say that, while most of the terminology used in the phone call was, in fact, "cop talk," some of it was EMS talk, including calling Louima the "patient," rather than the "perp." This would lead us to believe that McAlary's "tip" was from someone that really DID NOT have first-hand info on just what happened in the station house, since, by their own admission, EMS didn't get there until very late.
Interestingly, the radio news reports of McAlary's death reported that he received the Pulitzer for his stories about Louima, "who was brutally beaten by police." Since this was never proven in a courtroom, Prosay is surprised that the media was rather emphatic about it. After all, when someone shoots and kills a cop, isn't it "alleged" that the perp shot the cop, or doesn't the press report that "police say" that the perp did it? No such leeway comes into play when it comes to cops, though.
In any respect, the death of such a young man, who leaves a wife and four young children, is very sad, whether it's from a deadly disease, the bullet from a felon, or flames blowing down a hallway. Especially during this season.
