A day after two tearful bedside meetings between a wounded transit police officer and the New York City officer who shot him, a lawyer for the wounded man's family, as well as his half-brother and a close friend, asserted yesterday that the transit officer had been manipulated and that the meetings had been set up by the Police Department.
The lawyer also said that it was not until noon yesterday that the undercover transit officer, Desmond Robinson, gave his first detailed account of what he remembers of the shooting in the 53d Street subway station on Monday night.
He said Officer Robinson recalled having been shot twice from the front before he fell to the platform, then being shot twice more in the back as he lay face down.
The lawyer, Brian O'Dwyer, said Officer Robinson remembered that a substantial interval elapsed before the two shots into his back were fired. "He said he could not understand why he was shot on the ground -- that an officer should stop shooting," Mr. O'Dwyer said.
A long pause between the two shots could indicate that the other officer intentionally shot Officer Robinson while he was lying face down, not as he was falling or as he hit the platform. Firing in such a situation would violate Police Department rules, and could figure in the Manhattan District Attorney's deliberations on whether to prosecute.
The account of the shooting, as well as the criticism on how the meetings between the two officers were handled, came in a news conference called by Mr. O'Dwyer. He said Officer Robinson had been under sedation on Thursday and could not even remember the encounters with Officer Peter Del-Debbio, which police officers had characterized as touching moments of forgiveness and understanding across racial lines.
"It was set up by people who did not have Officer Robinson's best interests at heart," Mr. O'Dwyer said. "Obviously, there were other agendas being addressed."
The meetings were also criticized by Mr. Robinson's half-brother, Phillip Hysmith, who said family members were "disturbed and annoyed," and by an organization of black police officers that accused the Police Department of risking Officer Robinson's health to make a political point.
The shootings have raised questions about whether black undercover officers face a disproportionate risk of being injured by mistake by other police officers. Officer Del-Debbio, who is white, shot Officer Robinson, who is black, because he mistook him for a criminal.
The shooting occurred in the crowded subway station after passengers reported seeing two teen-agers carrying guns. The police said one youth dropped the shotgun he was carrying, which went off. In the confusion Officer Del-Debbio, who was off duty but in the station, mistook Officer Robinson for an armed suspect and shot him. Another transit officer then fired on Officer Del-Debbio, not realizing he, too, was a police officer, and wounded him in the arm, the police said.
Bratton Defends Meetings
Police Commissioner William J. Bratton yesterday continued to reject as divisive and irresponsible any suggestion that race played a role in the shooting of Officer Robinson. He said that nearly 50 witnesses had been interviewed and that he believed race was not a factor.
He also denied that his department had orchestrated the meetings between Officers Robinson and Del-Debbio, one of which was also attended by Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and a newspaper reporter and a photographer. He called the encounters a "very emotional, human scene." He said Officer Robinson was "strong, alert and in good humor" and said the hospital would have intervened if the meetings had been ill-advised.
"It was nothing the department set up, and I fail to see what's wrong with a photo or story relating the coming together of the two officers, " Commissioner Bratton said.
Cristyne Lategano, Mr. Giuliani's press secretary, said the Mayor did not orchestrate the meeting, but was merely at the hospital to visit the injured officer. She referred questions about how the meeting was set up to John Miller, the Deputy Police Commissioner for public information.
Profoundly Disturbed
With his lawyer and family and other officers and even the Police Commissioner all professing yesterday to speak for him, it remained unclear what Officer Robinson himself was thinking. But one colleague, a transit police officer who trained Officer Robinson, described his friend as profoundly disturbed by the events swirling around him.
The colleague, Lieut. Robert Wheeler, said Officer Robinson had telephoned him late Thursday and asked that he "take control" of the situation. Lieutenant Wheeler said, "Officer Robinson is perturbed about a great deal of things," from his physical injuries to the growing turmoil surrounding his case.
The first bedside encounter between Officers Robinson and Del-Debbio took place early Thursday in Officer Robinson's room at Bellevue Hospital Center. Three childhood friends who had been keeping Officer Robinson company said they had arranged the meeting at his request, after he had asked to see Officer Del-Debbio.
Two of those friends are New York City police officers, like Officer Del-Debbio; the third is a police officer in Coral Gables, Fla. All three are white.
Photographer and Giuliani
In accounts of the bedside meeting given afterward by Officer Robinson's friends, he and Officer Del-Debbio wept and hugged. One wore a cast, the other a hospital gown and tangle of tubes. One apologized; the other reassured. In the privacy of that room, Officer Robinson's friends said, there were no hard feelings.
Then a second meeting occurred just a few hours later. As Officer Del-Debbio was leaving the hospital to go home, he stopped by Officer Robinson's room shortly after noon. Mayor Giuliani also showed up for that encounter, as did a photographer and a reporter for The Daily News.
When word of that meeting got out, news organizations that had been trying for days to see Officer Robinson complained to the Police Department, which then tried to organize yet another bedside visit. Mayor Giuliani was to return in the early evening and a photographer for The Associated Press was to capture the encounter.
But Officer Robinson's doctors stepped in. Lieut. Pete Berry, a spokesman for the Police Department, said yesterday that the photo opportunity was canceled at the last minute because a doctor had said that the officer had been sedated and was not up to another appearance.
Criticism of the events came yesterday from Officer Robinson's lawyer, his family and the Guardians Association, an organization of black police officers that has said from the beginning that Officer Del-Debbio mistook Officer Robinson for a criminal because he is black.
"We witnessed a very sad day in law enforcement yesterday when the Mayor and police brass smuggled a reporter into a room of a police officer who was just removed from life support and was heavily sedated with medicine," said Eric Adams, an association official, at a news conference at City Hall.
"This is a sad day to use propaganda just to have public relations, without concerning yourself with the well-being of the officer, " he said. "How far will we go just to have the right photo opportunity to send a message that everything is all right?"
Mr. O'Dwyer, the lawyer for the Robinsons, also asserted that one participant in the meetings denied reports that Officer Robinson had "forgiven" Officer Del-Debbio. A law-enforcement official identified that participant as Ray Garcia, one of the two New York City police officers, friends of Officer Robinson, who had set up the first meeting.
Tears and Kiss on Head
But Commissioner Bratton and Mr. Miller, the chief spokesman for the department, insisted yesterday that the impetus for the encounters had come from Officer Robinson.
Commissioner Bratton recalled what he had seen -- tears, laughter and a kiss from Officer Del-Debbio on Officer Robinson's head. Mr. Bratton said he and Mr. Miller happened to attend the first meeting simply because they were visiting Officer Del-Debbio in the hospital when Officer Robinson invited him in.
As for the second meeting, Mr. Miller had told reporters late Thursday that that he had played no part in getting the reporter and photographer into the hospital room. But yesterday, a hospital spokeswoman said that Mr. Miller had asked her early Thursday to get Officer Robinson's consent for the reporter and photographer to be present.
"This was not our doing," said Vicki Ciampa, the spokeswoman. She said Officer Robinson had consented. "He knew a reporter would be there but he didn't want to be interviewed," she said. "John Miller, the Police Department, that group said he had agreed to do this."
Access Restricted
Mr. Miller said yesterday that he had helped obtain the permission only after Officer Robinson's friends from the department told him that Officer Robinson was willing to be photographed. Mr. Miller insisted that he had not taken the initiative in getting the reporter and photographer in.
Yesterday, access to Officer Robinson was severely restricted, said Lieutenant Wheeler of the transit police. He said he had been authorized by top transit police management to supervise the officers guarding Officer Robinson's room.
Detective Bill Nolan, who with Officer Garcia had arranged the first bedside encounter, said at the hospital yesterday that he had found himself barred from entering by a transit police officer, who said city police officers would no longer be let in.
Commissioner Bratton dismissed suggestions that tensions were developing between the transit and city police, and said the investigation into the shooting was a joint one. Neither Officer Robinson nor Officer Del-Debbio has been interviewed yet.
The two teen-agers arrested after the shooting, Shea Davis and Damal Parham, were indicted yesterday in State Supreme Court in Manhattan and charged with criminal possession of a weapon. Mr. Davis was also charged with criminal sale of a weapon, reckless endangerment and third-degree assault.
Lawyers for the city also appearing in State Supreme Court promised not to destroy any evidence collected in its investigation of Monday's incident. As a result, lawyers for Officer Robinson's family agreed to withdraw a motion for an injunction to force police investigators to turn over copies of all records and evidence.
GRAPHIC: Photos: Brian O'Dwyer, left, a lawyer for Officer Desmond Robinson, said yesterday that no reconciliation had occurred between his client and Officer Peter Del-Debbio, who opened fire on him in the subway. With Mr. O'Dwyer was Officer Robinson's brother, Phillip Hysmith, center, and an uncle, George Hargett.
