Lopez, appointed by Giuliani in early 1996, began a process of ridding himself of anyone tied to the Vega/Rosario/Bonilla case or any other cases dealing with police brutality. According to lawyers for other police victims, Lopez turned the CCRB into "a rubber-stamp for police abuse." Upon his own resignation from the CCRB, investigator Charles Harmon claimed that "Lopez is trying to get rid of anyone who insists on keeping this agency impartial."
Despite this new, police friendly CCRB (dubbed the Civilian Coverup Review Board in a 1996 Daily News article by Juan Gonzalez) Margarita Rosario's fight continued.
Driving around in a red Mazda (sold to her years earlier by Jorge Rodriguez) with a large black and white billboard sign on the back that read "ANTHONY ROSARIO - KILLED BY COPS" she started a group called Parents Against Police Brutality. The group which included Carmen Morales, mother of Hilton Vega, Iris Baez, mother of Anthony Baez, as well as the mothers and fathers of Anibal Carasquillo, Hessey Phelan, Yong Xin Huang, Frankie Arzuaga, and Aswan Watson, staged protests all over the city throughout the mid and late 1990's. These parents, as much a support group as a political action organization, were at the time ridiculed as "fools" by William Bratton who today holds the same gig with the LAPD.
The list of these fools only grew longer with each passing year. Police brutality and Giuliani's savage defense of it, best witnessed in the aftermath of the Patrick Dorismond murder, became a staple of his regime. While some cases, like the murder of honor student Yong Xin Huang were soon forgotten by most, others, like the ones of legal immigrants Abner Louima and Amadou Diallo became extremely volatile. Louima was picked up outside a raucous night club, severely beaten and sodomized by a cop with a broomstick who allegedly yelled "Giuliani time!" while committing his atrocities on the night of August 9th, 1997. A year and a half later, during the early morning hours of February 4th, 1999, Amadou Diallo was murdered while returning to his Bronx home. Four plain clothes cops on the prowl for a rapist instead picked off Diallo as he reached his stoop. Diallo first tried to run inside, then went into his coat pocket to show identification. One of the plain clothes cops yelled "gun" and 41 shots were fired. 19 hit Diallo who died instantly.
It was sometime between the Louima attack and Diallo killing that Jon Osman met Margarita Rosario. Through his camera we see her day-to-day fight for justice. The highlight, a phone call made by Rosario to Giuliani on July 16th, 1999. Rosario got through to WABC-AM where Giuliani hosted a weekly talk show. After hurrying her off the air and on to a commercial Giuliani came back from break to point that "perhaps she (Margarita Rosario) should look at her parenting skills and what role it played in her son’s death."
Osman's documentary ends with Rosario still looking for her day in court. Still driving around (her Mazda was torched after a January 7th, 1999 WBAI-FM radio interview, but she later purchased a new car and drew up a new sign) while letting the world know who murdered her son.
And so, Margarita's story continued. This month, 14 years after the deaths of Antonio Rosario and Hilton Vega, and 7 years after the premier of Osman's doc, Rosario finally got that day at a Bronx Civil Court. More than one actually as a three week civil trial began on March 6th, 2009. The public (well, those who don't follow the Fox News Channel where Brosnan is a frequent "crime expert" guest) became reacquainted with Patrick J. Brosnan who now lives in Scarsdale. He came out of his brief retirement in 1996 to start a private company called Brosnan Risk Consultants. An investigative service, and mitigation company, Brosnan Risk was paid a healthy city contract during the final days of Giuliani's administration to provide terrorist threat assessments to New York's water supply. (Giuliani also took care of Gene Lopez by naming him a criminal court judge shortly before leaving office in December of 2001.)
In 2005, Brosnan's group, staffed by many other retired cops, was given a federal contract by the Bush administration to study inter-city terrorist threats on buses, depots across New York State, and the Port Authority bus terminal just off of New York's Times Square.
Meanwhile, Crowe's retirement has been as quiet as his career was before the shootings. Still the two stood together in sticking with their stories. Despite what appeared to be a supportive Judge in Alan J. Saks , things were not going well for the defendants. On March 26th, the city asked for a plea bargain.
Although jurors seemed eager to award more, Margarita Rosario, threatened with an array of city appeals, finally settled. The city paid legal fees and 1.1 million dollars worth of damages each for the deaths of Antonio Rosario and Hilton Vega. $50,000 was awarded to Freddy Bonilla for his injury. Not much for a woman who spent the past 14 years struggling with the loss of a son and a nephew. In the end, some justice, no peace, but a clear sign from the city (after shelling over 2.2 million dollars) that these were not justifiable homicides.*
