the Los Angeles Riots of 1992. Los Angeles: Really
Great Books, 2002. A collection of essays written
by Los Angeles residents who reflect on what hap-
pened ten years earlier.
Williams, Willie L., with Bruce Henderson.Taking
Back Our Streets: Fighting Crime in America. New
York: Scribner, 1996. The former police chief in
Los Angeles and Philadelphia explains how com-
munity policing can restore the morale of police
officers while building trust with the public.
Michael Haas
See also African Americans; Christopher, Warren;
Crime; Crown Heights riot; Hate crimes; King,
Rodney; Mount Pleasant riot; Police brutality; Race
relations.
Louima torture case
The Event Arrest and subsequent mistreatment
of Abner Louima by four New York City police
officers
Date August 9, 1997
Place Brooklyn, New York
The outrageous nature of the allegations of physical abuse
by NYPD officers after they arrested Louima galvanized the
public and focused intense attention during the subsequent
trial proceedings on the police use of force.
Abner Louima was a Haitian immigrant arrested
during a brawl outside a social club in Brooklyn, New
York, during the early morning hours of August 9,
- One of the police officers called to the scene
was struck and identified Louima as his assailant
(this charge was later dropped). Louima was hand-
cuffed and taken to the seventieth police precinct in
Brooklyn. During that drive, it was alleged that the
officers stopped and beat Louima. Once at the sta-
tion, he was strip searched and then taken from the
holding cell to a bathroom where the assault contin-
ued. The most heavily publicized aspect of this as-
sault occurred when one officer used a plunger to
sodomize Louima, later sticking the handle into his
mouth and breaking several of his teeth. This was ac-
companied by racial slurs; he was eventually re-
turned to the holding cell.
The next morning, Louima was taken by ambu-
lance to a local hospital emergency room, where po-
lice told staff that he had been injured as the result
of homosexual behavior. A nurse at the hospital did
not believe this and notified Louima’s family and the
New York Police Department (NYPD) Internal Af-
fairs Bureau. The latter did not act on these allega-
tions until his relatives called them thirty-six hours
after the arrest. Louima remained hospitalized for
two months, during which time the NYPD applied
disciplinary measures (including transfer, suspen-
sion, and modified assignment) to fifteen officers
and filed misconduct charges against the four offi-
cers involved in the initial incident. On February 27,
1998, following an investigations by the U.S. Attor-
ney’s Office, the Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI), and the NYPD’s own Internal Affairs Division,
the arresting officers were charged with civil rights
violations and a supervisor was charged with trying
to cover up the assault. The NYPD filed additional
charges in October, 1998, against the officers, claim-
ing that they had lied to FBI agents investigating the
case. Two of the officers received prison terms (one
for thirty years), while Louima himself received
$8.75 million—the largest police brutality settle-
ment in New York City history.Impact This incident sparked outrage in the Hai-
tian community, which joined with thousands ofThe Nineties in America Louima torture case 531
A nurse wipes the forehead of Abner Louima, the victim of police
torture, at Coney Island Hospital in Brooklyn, New York, on Au-
gust 14, 1997.(AP/Wide World Photos)