According to Saturday's (October 31) NY Times, the NYPD has confirmed that Abner Louima, who alleges being assaulted by officers of the 70 Pct., has been issued a gun permit by the Pistol License Section of the NYPD. It is unknown if it is a "Full Carry" permit, but in the Times article, an NYPD spokesman stated that the permit was issued on the original application by Louima submitted a year before the alleged attack. Louima was looking for a permit for a security guard job that he had at the time. The permit was then issued in October of 1997, two months after the incident. Therefore, Louima has had a permit for over one year, to carry a gun in a job he doesn't have anymore! The lawyer for Police Officer Thomas Brudner, Stuart London, said in the Times that he also has information that Louima received firearms training from law enforcement officers. Both the NYPD and the FBI denied any formal training for Louima.
While the explanation by the NYPD appears innocent enough, anyone who has applied for a permit (other than a retired cop) for a job that doesn't exist anymore knows that it is close to impossible to get a restricted permit to carry a gun while actually working at a security job, never mind a full, 24-hours-a-day carry permit. The requirement for having a job that requires the carrying of a weapon is the number one requirement for obtaining and keeping a full carry permit. Based on published reports about Louima, it is safe to assume that he is no longer working in the security field. Therefore, using the criterion that the NYPD has used forever, Louima's application for the permit should have been denied, or, after being issued, the permit revoked and any guns he had purchased vouched.
It is obvious that Giuliani/Safir Regime, fearful themselves of the publicity of denying the permit for someone that says he was assaulted by cops, and now fears the entire NYPD, allowed the permit to be issued. Besides the fact that the Department has ignored its own requirements for a permit (which, let's face it, it does with these permits all the time...ask Howard Stern), it allows the Louima legal team to add another peg in its claim that there maybe some truth in all of Louima's statements, and in which the administration also believes. If there was no truth to Mr. Louima's claims, his lawyers could say, why, then, did the department issue a pistol permit to him, unless they felt his claim were valid?
It appears that the cops' lawyers are going after this permit issue full-speed ahead. As well they should.
