SIZZLE THE BACON

This week was marked by developments which highlight the tangled relations between race, crime and punishment. More than a decade has passed since New York City's most infamous subway assailant, Bernard Goetz, opened fire on four black teenagers who asked him for money. In 1987, three years after the shooting, a jury acquitted Goetz of the most serious criminal charges levelled against him. He was found guilty of only minor weapons charges, and many city residents viewed him as a heroic vigilante who had stood up to "predators," as the four youths were described by Goetz's lawyer, Barry Slotnick.

This week, the civil trial against Goetz ended much differently--one of his victims won a $43 million settlement. Apparently, this jury did believe that Goetz acted improperly when he stood over one of the wounded youth and callously remarked: "You don't look so bad. Here's another one," before shooting him again. That second shot paralyzed the teenager and reduced his mental capacity to that of an eight-year-old child.

Goetz, who has admitted to using angel dust (PCP), suggested, in court, that his victim's mother should have had an abortion, and has never expressed any regret for the incident.

The civil trial was largely symbolic, because Goetz will hardly be able to pay even a small fraction of the settlement. The civil proceedings were begun by the late anti-establishment legal hero William Kunstler, and concluded by Ronald Kuby, the pony-tailed bearer of Kunstler's mantle. The second Goetz verdict may signal that juries have become more immune to race-baiting or less likely to see black youth as potential muggers.

Or it may just show that civil trials are easier to win than criminal trials--which bodes ominously for O.J. Simpson and his defense team. A more significant insight into America's criminal justice system is provided by the lawsuit filed against the Beverly Hills police department this week. The suit charges Beverly Hills cops with singling out the few black residents of the posh community for abusive treatment. Typically, many of the plaintiffs complain that they are frequently subjected to groundless, demeaning and sometimes violent traffic stops.

This disturbing phenomenon may not be endemic to the U.S. Two weeks ago in Toronto, Canada, the police stopped and arrested Rubin Carter for crack dealing. But they definitely had the wrong man--not only was Carter completely innocent, but he had previously been in jail for 19 years on a false murder charge. He is the current executive director of the Association in Defense of the Wrongly Convicted. The Toronto police, who are accused of stopping blacks more frequently than whites, attempted to excuse their arrest as "mistaken identity" and offered to pay for damaging Carter's Mercedes. He has threatened legal action.

Most black people know that a perverse motivation leads cops to continually "mistake" them for criminals. Racially-motivated police misconduct affects black Americans from Brooklyn to Beverly Hills. And the Canadian cops who follow the racist example of some of America's police--who deserve to be called pigs--are perhaps more accurately described as Canadian bacon.