Brutality

Tough and beautiful, Cary Fukunaga's Sin Nombre strikes such a stark contrast to last year's overhyped border-crossing drama Under the Same Moon that the two films - both addressing the experiences of Mexicans and Central Americans trying to get to the United States - might as well be from different planets. Where Patricia Riggen shamelessly milked Under the Same Moon's melodrama, Fukunaga's startlingly impressive first feature is almost ruthless in its depiction of the brutality and degradation confronting the hidden hordes that cross rivers and hop trains trying to get to the United States.

John Frankenheimer's new version of The Island of Dr. Moreau arrives in the centennial year of the H.G. Wells story's publication. With the designing of genes now a real-world controversy instead of a prescient 19th-century fantasy, it might seem time for an update. For the first half of The Island of Dr. Moreau, Frankenheimer makes his case, but as soon as the demented genius passes from the scene, sense and coherence quickly follow. Dr. Moreau (Marlon Brando) is the first to admit his work on the South Pacific island is in its experimental stages.

Martin Sherman's play Bent is a story of love that develops within the brutally murderous atmosphere of a Nazi concentration camp. This makes it a tricky piece to stage. The problem is that brutality is easy to depict. Evoking a feeling of connection and love between two characters is more difficult, and the Hunger Theatre production doesn't manage this very well. The love story leaves the theatergoer emotionally cold, and because the cruelty of the SS has a stronger impact, we are denied the pleasure of feeling a moral victory over the play's collection of particularly awful Nazis.

Two Philadelphia police officers, one of them the rookie brother of a former officer awaiting trial for murder, were suspended from the force yesterday and face dismissal on brutality charges, officials said. Paul Hunt, 20, and Marcellus Robinson, 26, both assigned to the 22d District, were awaiting arraignment at the Police Administration Building last night on a variety of charges that investigators said stemmed from the beatings of two suspects the pair took into custody on separate occasions.

Call her madam? You wouldn't dare. Call her mad. And Dora's not the only gal at Amsterdam's Happy House brothel who's steamed. The male proprietor thinks he can boost revenues by introducing sadomasochism to the menu of attractions. Dora thinks this is redundant in a house where every day the johns get more callous. Doubly redundant in a society where men don't have to pay for the privilege of abusing women. For example, take the serial killer who abducts and tortures staid matrons, then stuffs their corpses into garbage bags and dumps them into the sludge of an abandoned canal.

Local NAACP officials said yesterday that they will probe about 40 cases of alleged brutality by city police officers during the last 18 months. Nearly all the cases involve white police officers injuring black suspects during arrests, said Ellis Carr, an NAACP board member who heads an East Wilmington citizens' group called Eastlawn Area Human Services. Carr said the NAACP will form a committee of 15 people, from NAACP members and Wilmington community leaders, to interview the alleged brutality victims.

Three sons of Brooklyn, N.Y., each held court separately yesterday in a stately old hotel in this depressed city that once was a resort mecca for New Yorkers. The Rev. Al Sharpton, a leader of this summer's massive black protests in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, advised an NAACP public hearing that the state should create an office to investigate police brutality. Gov. Florio, assured a much larger luncheon audience in a chandelier-lit ballroom at the NAACP's annual state conference that his administration would "devise and enforce guidelines" on police brutality.

Law enforcement agencies in the South were a major target of complaints to the federal government about police misconduct from 1984 to 1990, according to a Justice Department study made public yesterday. However, the study analyzed fragmentary data and has limited importance, department officials said. Still, a House Judiciary Committee analyst said it did reveal "a real Southern cast. . . . A lot of the police brutality problems appear to be in Southern and border states.

Two Elkins Park brothers are claiming Cheltenham police brutalized them during their arrest July 17, 1990, for disorderly conduct. In a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Montgomery County Court, Christopher B. Vahey, 22, contends that while he was handcuffed, Officer John P. Slavin repeatedly beat him with a nightstick on his arms, legs and back. His brother, Harold M. Vahey, 27, claims in the lawsuit that Officer Robert Dougherty struck him with a flashlight, ordered the police dog to attack and bite his face and right leg, and then kicked him. After Harold Vahey was handcuffed and bleeding, the suit charges, Dougherty pushed and shoved him, injuring him further.

ORLANDO, Fla. - A Florida A&M drum major who died after being hazed on a bus was known for his opposition to hazing but agreed to go through a brutal initiation ritual because it was seen as an honor, according to interviews with bandmates released Wednesday. Robert Champion, 26, had asked all season to go through the hazing ritual known as "crossing over," defendant Jonathan Boyce said. Multiple witnesses say the ordeal involved the participant going from the front to the back of the bus while others beat the person.

KABUL, Afghanistan - President Obama sought to use a surprise visit to Afghanistan to start lowering the curtain on the longest war in U.S. history. But as Taliban-led insurgents showed only hours after Obama flew home Wednesday, the bloodletting appears far from over. At least three suicide attackers struck a heavily guarded housing complex for international workers in Kabul, and the Taliban declared the start of a spring offensive, a dark bookend to Obama's brief overnight visit that contrasted starkly with his assertion that the conflict is winding down.

A FAIRHILL FAMILY was thrust into a real-life nightmare after a group of masked men burst into their rowhouse and murdered a 36-year-old man in cold blood while his mother, siblings and 6-year-old niece sat helpless, bound and gagged by the thugs. Cops were called to the house, on 9th Street just north of Somerset, shortly before 11 p.m. Wednesday and found the man - whom police identified Thursday as Roshan Sullivan - in a rear bedroom bleeding from a gunshot wound to the back of his head.

At 2:38 a.m. on Nov. 15, Kevin Neary found himself sprawled on the sidewalk of Bodine Street near the pretty brick rowhouse where he rented an apartment. He couldn't feel his arms or legs. He tried calling, "Help," three times, but with each attempt, as though in a nightmare, his voice grew weaker. Why could no one hear him? Minutes passed. Neary opened his eyes to see a police officer kneeling beside him. "Don't let me die," he pleaded. Over the next few weeks, he sometimes wondered whether he'd have been better off dead.

EVEN AS HER husband lay dying and her own body was riddled with 14 bullets, Sherrell Rhine-Paul could think of just one thing. "She was crawling on the ground towards her children's room to protect them," police said, according to court documents. Rhine-Paul, 39, and her husband, John Paul Jr., 35, were shot during an invasion of their Strawberry Mansion home on March 5. Paul was killed but his wife miraculously survived. Their two children, ages 6 and 13, were unharmed. Police said they could see no motive for the brutality and wondered if the two invaders might have gotten the wrong address.

CLEARWATER, Fla. - Roger Goodell's NFL spent three years investigating allegations the New Orleans Saints gave players bonuses for injuring opponents. Paul Tagliabue's NFL spent 17 days exonerating Buddy Ryan for the same thing. Times have changed. Maybe even football coaches will be smart enough to understand that after Goodell levies the expected heavy punishment on the Saints, head coach Sean Payton, former defensive coordinator Gregg Williams, and whoever else deserves it. Of course, maybe times would have changed a little faster if Tagliabue's office hadn't rushed to whitewash Ryan's behavior after the so-called "Bounty Bowl" back in 1989.

Note: This story has been corrected from an earlier version. THE LARGE, extended family of Seamus O'Neill had been waiting four years for the verdict that a Philadelphia jury handed to John McLaughlin yesterday - guilty of first-degree murder. Through numerous court delays and setbacks, O'Neill's family members - who emigrated from Northern Ireland more than 30 years ago - waited patiently to witness his murderer receive what he got: a sentence of life in state prison without parole.

ANAHEIM, CALIF - An ex-Marine charged with killing four homeless men in Southern California has been linked to the stabbing deaths of a woman and her son, Anaheim police said yesterday. Investigators found an association between the ex-Marine, Itzcoatl Ocampo, and Eder Herrera, who is charged in the deaths of the woman and her son, and remains in custody. Police would not elaborate on that association or provide further details. Raquel Estrada and her son Juan Herrera were killed in October in Yorba Linda, less than two miles from Ocampo's home.

THE KILLERS left no witnesses. Philadelphia police are investigating the slayings of two people found with their throats slashed in a blood-soaked South Philadelphia apartment yesterday morning. Two small dogs also were stabbed to death. "It was a very violent, violent attack," Philadelphia Police Capt. James Clark said outside the home. The bodies were discovered in the building on Dickinson Street near Juniper about 9:50 a.m. after neighbors noticed the smell of gas and called the building's owner.

Police have identified a man found stabbed to death, along with a woman, in a South Philadelphia apartment. Eugene C. Zappacosta who lived in the apartment at 13th and Dickinson, was stabbed repeatedly and his throat slashed, police said. It was his 78th birthday. A woman, who was covered with so much blood that police initially thought was a man, has not yet been identified. Their bodies were discovered Tuesday morning. Investigators have not reported a possible motive in the killings that shocked neighbors.