Cop-out on Bruce:NYPD pulled Boss' Shea escort after '41 Shots'

NY DAILY NEWS ^ | Originally published on October 8, 2003 | By GEORGE RUSH and TRACY CONNOR

[Behind Liberal Lines]

An NYPD chief tried to show Bruce Springsteen who's the Boss - yanking the singer's police escort from Shea Stadium after he performed a song about cop-shooting victim Amadou Diallo.

Chief of Department Joseph Esposito got angry when he heard Springsteen sing "American Skin (41 Shots)" at last Wednesday night's opening show at Shea, a police source told the Daily News.

Esposito, the highest-ranking uniformed cop in the department, ordered the escort cut for Springsteen's next show, on Friday night, the source said.

The Boss did not play the song that night or the next - and the security detail was restored for the Saturday night finale.

Springsteen's spokesman did not return calls for comment about the snub or whether he cut the song from the last two shows to mollify the cops.

Boss biographer Dave Marsh, who is married to band co-manager Barbara Carr, called the police reaction "petty foolishness."

"Springsteen, like any other performer who plays Shea Stadium, pays for the extremely heavy 'security' presence in the building," Marsh wrote in an E-mail to The News.

"It is common around the world to allow performers at stadium concerts an escort before leaving ... in order that they not be held inside the building for several hours while parking lots clear."

The Police Department did not deny it pulled back the escort.

"As a courtesy, we gave Mr. Springsteen an escort to his boat at the World's Fair Marina following the concerts Wednesday and Saturday," NYPD spokesman Michael O'Looney said.

Asked about the Friday night show, O'Looney declined to elaborate.

"I'm just going to leave it at that," he said.

Springsteen's song has been striking the wrong note with cops since it was released in the summer of 2000.

Its refrain, "41 shots," is a pointed reference to the number of bullets that four white police officers fired at Diallo, an unarmed African immigrant, in February 1999. Diallo was struck by 19 bullets.

At Wednesday night's show, some cops were particularly peeved that Springsteen followed "American Skin" with "Into the Fire," which lionizes firefighters.

[jake hoyt]

Well ,New Yorkers do love their Cops,for better or worse , and the Cops LOVE their city and the people(Saw it first hand when a older Irish Cop ran into an apt that was on fire, and came back back 5 mins later with a a heavy set PR woman and two kids! this was in Brooklin in 1999 when I visited my ex-girlfirend.As he sat on the side walk to cough out the smoke and the NYFD showed up,the people from the "hood" patted patted him on the back , ran and got him water to drink , and got him wet towels to wipe his face-YOU just don't see that in L.A.!!) As for Bob Dole,sometimes we look at old somber Politicians and (like old cars) don't think they have the "flash" we need!but its the fact that they keep going,"flashy" or not that matters . Dole was once a Democrat and has always been a man of the people(helped even fight for certain civil rights legislation against his own party in the '60s) Its too bad that the "Stars" like the "Boss" don't do they're homework.....