Ding Dong Bruce Smolka’s Gone

by Aaron Naparstek on January 24, 2007

Newsday is reporting that NYPD Assistant Chief Bruce Smolka has filed for retirement. Smolka is reknowned for his needlessly aggressive tactics in breaking up peaceful political demonstrations, his disregard of basic civil rights and his all-too-frequent abusiveness towards women. In one infamous video he was caught kicking a female demonstrator in the head at a May 2003 sit-in.

Newsday reports:

Smolka made the announcement last week, surprising police commanders gathered for a meeting at police headquarters, police sources said. The 32-year veteran will work his last day in less than a month, then go to work for Ron Perelman, head of Revlon Corp., sources said. Smolka's retirement comes as his reputation would appear to be set in stone: Rank-and-file police officers adore him - one told Newsday he'd take a bullet for him - while civil libertarians and many of those who have taken part in recent demonstrations say he is short-tempered and overly aggressive.

The story goes on: 

Smolka emerged as a key figure in the protests during the RNC. More than 1,800 people were arrested. The New York Civil Liberties Union has filed two lawsuits challenging those mass arrests, and Smolka is in the middle of giving a deposition regarding police tactics, according to lawyers involved in the case. Meanwhile, a separate lawsuit is nearing trial in Manhattan Federal Court, as Cynthia Greenberg has accused Smolka of repeatedly kicking her in the head and cursing at her while trying to arrest her during a 2003 Manhattan rally in which demonstrators protested the U.S. government's immigration policies.

In 2005 the editors of the New York Press selected Smolka as number 17 on the year's list of the Fifty Most Loathsome New Yorkers. I wrote up the entry. Here is the longer, unedited version:

smolka.jpgLast Friday the NYPD smashed yet another Critical Mass bike ride seizing 50 bikes and arresting 37 people for the crime of assembling in Union Square Park on two wheels. It was a continuation of the crackdown that started during last summer's epic 5,000-rider Republican National Convention event. Despite a federal court order declaring the NYP's actions illegal, it doesn't look like the cops are going to let up. As the weather gets nicer and the rides grow in size, the confrontations are likely to get worse.

Architect of the Critical Mass crackdown is NYPD Assistant Chief Bruce Smolka. A little background: Before turning his attention to cyclists, Smolka was the commanding officer of the NYPD's infamous Street Crimes Unit. It was his officers who, in February 1999, pumped 41 bullets into Amadou Diallo, an unarmed African immigrant guilty of nothing more than standing in the hallway of his own apartment building. Though the incident nearly sparked race riots and ultimately led to the disbanding of the Street Crimes Unit, it earned Smolka a promotion. Today he runs Patrol Borough Manhattan South and is chief for all of Manhattan below 59th Street.

The new job combined with the exigencies of the post-9/11 era has given the 30-year NYPD veteran the opportunity to practice his doctrine of overwhelming force and disregard of First Amendment rights on a bigger, more public stage. In February 2003, Smolka illegally ordered horseback-mounted police to charge into a group of peaceful anti-war demonstrators. In April, he confronted a group of about 100 demonstrators in front of the midtown headquarters of Carlyle Group with three times as many officers outfitted in full riot gear. "We were swept off the street like fleas," Ben Maurer, an activist arrested that day, told a journalist on the scene. "I was illegally arrested, just for yelling at a building."

But it wasn't until 2004 when Smolka was appointed co-chair of site security at the Republican National Convention that he really hit his stride. Responsible for securing midtown and everything moving in and out of Madison Square Garden, the Chief could often be found standing on his perimeter, head clean-shaven, blue eyes squinting, chin jutting, arms folded across his chest like an urban Patton. A hands-on kind of guy, never afraid to dive into a crowd of demonstrators, Smolka personally oversaw the illegal arrest and detention of hundreds during the convention.

Smolka's civil liberties violations didn't stop once the Republicans left town. Perhaps humiliated by his inability to predict or control the humongous Critical Mass ride of August, the chief seems to have made it his mission to completely destroy the ride. He continues to unleash his wrath and the full force of the NYPD on cyclists the last Friday of every month. Internet bulletin boards that post his photo inevitably fill up with messages or recognition like, "Hey, Smolka is the asshole who very deliberately threw me in the street then told me to get out of the street."

Justice may be catching up to Smolka. At a December 8, 2004 federal court hearing on Critical Mass, civil liberties lawyer Steven Hyman skewered the chief before federal judge, William Pauley. The day's highlight was Smolka's attempt to argue that seven bikes lined up on a New York City street are a "procession" requiring a permit while seven motor vehicles clogging the very same street are simply traffic. Judge Pauley didn't buy it. He ruled that the NYPD acted improperly by arresting and seizing the bicycles of Critical Mass riders and he denied the NYPD's request for a federal injunction preventing people with bikes from assembling at Union Square Park on the last Friday of the month. By the judge's ruling, bikes have just as much right to be traffic as cars.

For anyone who has followed Bruce Smolka's career, Judge Pauley's verdict was not a surprise. The upside of being arrested in a Smolka street sweep is that you have about a 100% chance of being exonerated when your case finally comes before a judge.