LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL

Ten years ago this week an unarmed 23 old immigrant from Guinea named Amadou Diallo was killed by four of New York City’s finest who fired 41 shots at a man standing still and holding a wallet hitting him 19 times. The officers were exonerated of all criminal charges in a trial held in officer friendly Albany.

Men and women who wear blue uniforms in towns and villages, cities and states are among those groups that are above the law because Officer Friendly’s role in society has developed into one in which they preserve the status quo by protecting and serving the interests of the privileged few.

Ten years later the beat goes on in Schenectady NY where a large-scale drug trafficking ring was prosecuted by the state attorney general’s office. Among the nearly 30 defendants was the former Schenectady Chief of Police, Gregory Kaczmarek or Chief Kaz as the locals affectionately referred to him and his wife Lisa or Mrs. Kaczmarek.

The justice system made an example of Chief Kaz by giving him a two year prison sentence but let him keep his pension. Most of the other defendants got more time than Chief Kaz and most of the other defendants didn’t get to keep much of any of their possessions as Chief Kaz.

As for the more culpable Mrs. Chief Kaz while the record shows that she brought her husband into the ring, gave him the apple and told him to take a bite she only got 6 months in jail because Mr. For Better or Worse gallantly took a longer sentence (2 years???) so his wife wouldn’t have to endure living in a cage like the less privileged for committing the same offenses.

Taking the life of another man, not taking responsibility and not being held accountable is not justice to the victim’s family and it’s not “justice for all” and when the court applies a lesser standard to a high profile member of the public for committing the kind of crime that others lose everything they have except for their lives which will be spent living in cages then this too is not “justice for all”.

The reality is that Amadou Diallo was murdered in cold blood, no one was found guilty and Chief Kaz got off easy in a place that claims “liberty and justice for all” and at the end of the day the best we can say about ourselves is that we are a nation of different laws and different standards for different men who don’t want to lose their status of privilege which by definition they would have to if there was indeed “liberty and justice for all”