Sharpton's Misstep

Here's some advice to those protesting the acquittal of three New York Police detectives for the November 2006 shooting of Sean Bell: snarling rush-hour traffic isn't the best way to win ordinary New Yorkers over to your cause.

Rather than targeting their protest at the police, or at the judge who ruled to acquit, or at Governor Paterson or Mayor Bloomberg or other politicians with the power to change police procedures, the Reverend Al Sharpton and hundreds of allied demonstrators yesterday took out their rage on the commuters of New York, driving home from work to their families. By targeting the Brooklyn Bridge, the Queensboro Bridge, the Triborough Bridge, the Holland Tunnel, the Manhattan Bridge, and the Queens-Midtown Tunnel, the protesters also made life harder for truck and bus drivers and for ambulance crews.

Whatever you think of the Sean Bell shooting and the outcome of the criminal case, Rev. Sharpton's actions seem sure to turn attention away from that subject. Instead the talk will be of Rev. Sharpton and his tactics.

Anger in the wake of the shooting and the verdict is understandable, but we had hoped that it would have been channeled in productive directions, along some of the lines Errol Louis has suggested in his columns for the Daily News.

As if to underscore the inappropriateness of Rev. Sharpton's tactics comes the news from Lebanon that yesterday Hezbollah, the terrorist group, "blocked routes to Beirut's main commercial district." The Rev. Sharpton is no Sheik Nasrallah, but they seem to have been schooled in the same to-heck-with-the-commuter method of public relations.

Hundreds of the New York protesters were arrested, and they deserve to be prosecuted to the fullest extent the law allows. There is plenty of room in New York City for peaceful protest. It is part of the city's lifeblood, and if those responding to the Sean Bell verdict wanted to gather in a park or a stadium or on a street that is not a main traffic artery, no reasonable people would be objecting.

It's not as if getting arrested and blocking traffic is the only way Rev. Sharpton can get people's attention. Mayor Bloomberg has met with him, Governor Paterson has visited him, he appears regularly on the Fox News Channel, even the Anti-Defamation League's Abraham Foxman, once a severe critic, has cooperated with Rev. Sharpton on certain issues. Senator Clinton and Senator Obama have both courted him. Yet instead of concentrating on those channels, Rev. Sharpton yesterday chose to block traffic and get arrested.

In a press release on his Web site, Rev. Sharpton said he hoped "the acts of civil disobedience will continue until an eventual citywide day to shutdown NYC later this Spring." There is nothing civil about shutting down New York City; it does no good for anyone. It won't bring Sean Bell back to life or end the pain of his widow or prevent a single future shooting or make the lives of those who shot him normal again. It is a destructive threat, a disappointment to anyone who had thought that Rev. Sharpton had gotten wiser with age.