Newsday 04/19/2001 - Thursday - Page A 53 Sharpton May Lead FDNY Protest
by Curtis L. Taylor Staff Writer The Rev. Al Sharpton said yesterday that he will lead protests against the Fire Department if it hires Officer Edward McMellon while qualified African-American candidates are passed over. "This would certainly energize a movement against the Fire Department...which, you have to remember, has its own history of racial problems," Sharpton said yesterday after returning from Cincinnati, where riots followed the shooting death of an unarmed black man by a white police officer. Sharpton made his comments in response to statements made by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani at an earlier news conference. When asked about Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen's decision to wait for an internal police investigation into McMellon's role in the 1999 fatal shooting of Amadou Diallo to conclude, Giuliani said hiring McMellon was not the fire commissioner's decision to make. "The Police Department makes the decision, and it will get made on the merits in due course, and I support that," Giuliani said. "If [McMellon] turns out not to have done anything significantly wrong, then he's going to be hired, and so far it sure looks that way." Giuliani added that the police were "virtually finished with their review," and once completed, McMellon should be allowed "to move forward." But Sharpton and other black and Latino leaders from police and fire fraternal organizations feared McMellon's hiring would set back recruiting efforts of minorities for both the police and fire departments. His hiring might also re-ignite the racial hostilities that engulfed the city after the shooting, they said. Speaking at a news conference at the New York Civil Liberties Union, Michael Marshall, second vice president of the Vulcan Society, said McMellon's tainted past made him unqualified to work as "one of the best." "Certainly they must take into account he fired 16 shots at an unarmed man, was involved in one of the most polarizing incidents in this city, and he is certainly guilty of using poor judgment in one city department," said Marshall, whose organization represents black firefighters. At City Hall, Public Advocate Mark Green said he was "outraged" and "disappointed" that McMellon might simply transfer out of the Police Department and "evade entire responsibility for being among those who shot Amadou Diallo by the bureaucratic two-step of going to the Fire Department." Green, a candidate for mayor, lauded Von Essen's decision to wait but challenged the mayor in a letter to reconsider his position. Deputy Fire Commissioner Frank Gribbon said Von Essen continued to stand behind his position of waiting for the results of the police probe. "The police review will be part of the candidate's review, as it should be," Gribbon said. A police spokesman did not return several calls

-- Anonymous, April 19, 2001