OFFICERS IN BRONX FIRE 41 SHOTS, AND AN UNARMED MAN IS KILLED
An unarmed [black] West African immigrant with no criminal record was killed early yesterday by four [white plain-clothes] New York City police officers who fired 41 shots at him[19 of which hit him, including some which were found to have traveled up his pants leg, meaning he was clearly down while the shooting continued] in the doorway of his Bronx apartment building, the police said.
It was unclear yesterday why the police officers had opened fire on the man at 12:44 A.M. in the vestibule of his building at 1157 Wheeler Avenue in the Soundview section. The man, Amadou Diallo, 22, who came to America more than two years ago from Guinea and worked as a street peddler in Manhattan, died at the scene, the police said.
The Bronx District Attorney's office is investigating the shooting, whose details were still murky last night because there were apparently no civilian witnesses and none of the police officers involved had given statements to investigators. But Inspector Michael Collins, a police spokesman, said that investigators who went to the scene of the shooting did not find a weapon on or near Mr. Diallo....
Officers in Bronx Fire 41 Shots, And an Unarmed Man Is Killed - New York Times[/B]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Emphasis and addition of words and phrases in the news story are mine.] The response to this shooting on the part of many was jaw dropping and head shaking. How could four big, white plain-clothes police officers fire 41 bullets at a small, slightly built, unarmed African immigrant as he stood in the entranceway of his own home with his wallet in his hand? And the results of the trial of the four officers?
THE DIALLO VERDICT: THE OVERVIEW; 4 OFFICERS IN DIALLO SHOOTING ARE ACQUITTED OF ALL CHARGES
Four New York City police officers were acquitted today of all charges in the death of Amadou Diallo, the immigrant from Guinea who was fired on 41 times as he stood, unarmed, in the vestibule of his apartment building in the Bronx.
The verdict came in a tense and racially charged case that led to anti-police demonstrations, arrests and a reorganization of the department's Street Crime Unit, to which the officers belonged.
But litigation over the shooting might not be over. After the verdict, Mary Jo White, the United States attorney in Manhattan, announced that her office, which has been monitoring the case from the start, and the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department would review the shooting to determine whether any civil rights laws were violated. And Mr. Diallo's parents plan to file a civil lawsuit against the city. The officers could also face administrative charges within the department.
The shooting occurred about 12:40 a.m. on Feb. 4, 1999, when the four officers, all in street clothes, approached Mr. Diallo on the stoop of his building and fired 41 shots, striking him 19 times, as he retreated inside. The officers, who are white, said they had thought he had a gun. It turned out to be a wallet....
THE DIALLO VERDICT: THE OVERVIEW; 4 OFFICERS IN DIALLO SHOOTING ARE ACQUITTED OF ALL CHARGES - New York Times
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In other words, this killing of Amadou Diallo by four police officers was not only NOT considered a "hate crime" insofar as racism was concerned, the verdict also shows that it was not even considered a "crime"! And the trial for this "non-crime"? Here is a portion of the article from
Time Magazine:
AT DIALLO TRIAL, JUSTICE IS WEIGHED IN DIFFERENT MEASURES
It's become something of a bitter, rhetorical joke: Where would you rather be, as a black man encountering the police — New York City or Los Angeles?
While discussions of race have been aggressively squelched in the courtroom, the troubled legacies of Rodney King and Abner Louima haunt the trial of four white New York City police officers accused of murdering African trinket salesman Amadou Diallo. The police say they mistook Diallo's black wallet, which he apparently proffered in an outstretched hand, for a gun, and believing their lives were in danger, the police fired their weapons 41 times.
The February 1999 shooting sparked heated, celebrity-studded protests and calls for the resignation of New York police commissioner Howard Safir. Get-tough anti-crime methods were under fire and under the microscope; years of mounting tension between cops and minorities came to a head after Diallo's killing — and loud factions demanded action and answers.
Nearly a year after the shooting, unease surrounding the case had barely abated, and the decision was made to move the trial upstate in an attempt to escape the blinding spotlight of New York City's criminal courts. So the press corps and New York City court officers moved to the state capital, Albany, filling area hotels — and imagining themselves facing another O.J.-length trial....
At Diallo Trial, Justice Is Weighed in Different Measures - TIME
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We can judge for ourselves without being a part of the proceedings, though our judgments are meaningless in relation to what actually takes place in the courtroom. And the jury spoke: What would have appeared to have been a "hate crime" by today's standards was considered not to have been a crime at all!