WASHINGTON — Cities across the country could risk protests and riots like the ones in Cincinnati if police misconduct goes unpunished, the attorney for the family of a black man killed by Cincinnati police said Wednesday.

Kabaka Oba, Nikki K and Abdul Mohammad Ali stand in silent protest Wednesday in City Council chambers. (Michael E. Keating photo) | ZOOM |

        “When people have been denied justice, they will rise up,” said Kenneth Lawson, who is representing the family of Timothy Thomas, 19, who was shot and killed after running from police officers April 7.

        Mr. Lawson spoke Wednesday at a seminar on police misconduct at American University's Washington College of Law. The discussion, sponsored by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, focused on racial profiling and police brutality.

        Although Mr. Lawson stressed he does not condone the riots, he said the city and the police department did not respond to allegations of police abuse until protests by African-Americans turned violent and threatened whites and downtown businesses.

        “Every day, brothers are getting beat and pulled out of their cars solely based on the color of their skin,” said Mr. Lawson, who is African-American. “There's been no swift response when it happens to us. There's been no curfew when it happens to us. There's been no calling of the National Guard when it happens to us every day.”

        Defense lawyers and several people who said police abused or harassed them said a culture of silence among many officers allows prejudicial attitudes about minorities to continue.

        Even in some of the most extreme cases of police abuse, defense lawyers say police officers are reluctant to expose fellow officers.

        “They don't like to rat each other out even when a colleague is doing something wrong,” said Barry Scheck, a defense lawyer and founder of the Innocence Project, which has used DNA evidence to help clear several people wrongly convicted. “It's the code, and how deep that code runs, that's the heart of it.”

        A U.S. Department of Justice survey of police officers published last year found 83 percent of the 925 officers who participated disagreed with the idea that a “code of silence is an essential part of the mutual trust necessary to good policing.”

        But 52 percent agreed it was not unusual for officers to ignore misconduct from other officers.

        The survey also found different perceptions about police practices among white and black officers. Fifty-one percent of black officers thought police often treat whites better than black people or other minorities, while only 11 percent of white officers felt that way.

        Elmo Randolph, a dentist from Orange, N.J., said police stopped him numerous times on the New Jersey Turnpike in the late 1980s and early '90s, but he never was issued a citation. He said the traffic stops ended only after he spoke out publicly about racial profiling.

        “People of color have been subjected to this kind of treatment for years,” he said.

        Laura Murphy of the American Civil Liberties Union said African-Americans took to the streets in Cincinnati after years of unanswered allegations of police misconduct.

        The ACLU's Ohio chapter and the Cincinnati Black United Front have sued the city claiming 30 years of racial misconduct by police.

        The ACLU and other civil-liberties and civil-rights groups are talking with lawmakers about legislation that would define racial profiling, study its prevalence and outline steps to eliminate the practice nationwide.

        President Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft have encouraged a review.

        “This is nothing short of a national embarrassment and disgrace,” Ms. Murphy said.

        Mr. Lawson said much of the problem stems from mistrust between police officers and the people in neighborhoods they are assigned to patrol. In many neighborhoods, he said fear and suspicion infects both sides.

        “There is a sense of fairness and justice in everybody,” Mr. Lawson said. “You have to find it.”

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