Front man for a police state: Bernard Kerik to head US Homeland Security

[IndianaGreen]

Front man for a police state
Bernard Kerik to head US Homeland Security Department
By Bill Van Auken
4 December 2004

In 2000, Giuliani named Kerik as police commissioner, the most powerful position in the city administration next to that of mayor. The appointment came in the midst of a mounting crisis fueled by Giuliani’s unleashing of police repression against the city’s working class and poor. The crisis gained national notoriety with the 1997 stationhouse torture in Brooklyn of Abner Louima and the 1999 killing of African immigrant Amadou Diallo, who died in a hail of police bullets in his own doorway.

Kerik, who never rose above the lowest rank of detective, was picked over senior NYPD chiefs with decades of experience. His chief asset was his unwavering subservience to Giuliani. With his former chauffeur in the top position, Giuliani was assured that his word would be law within the police department.

While Kerik made a show of reaching out to minority communities, he did little to stem the hostility toward both Giuliani and his own “zero-tolerance” policing methods. After lawyers for the cops who killed Diallo succeeded in moving the case to Albany and securing an acquittal, Kerik added insult to injury by clearing them of any internal disciplinary charges. The action amounted to an endorsement of an operation in which officers fired 41 bullets at an unarmed man whom they had not even identified.

Then came September 11. While the Bush administration seized upon the terrorist attacks as the pretext for implementing long-planned military operations and attacks on democratic rights, Giuliani and Kerik used their association with the events of that day to promote themselves.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/dec2004/keri-d04.shtml

[Kolesar]

1. Two slush-fund scandals

Kerik is in no way qualified for this job. Will anybody but the blogs/internet world figure that out and say it?

[teryang]

2. This appointment is about what I'd expect

...from a fascist state. Why do people pretend to be surprised any more?