Amadou Diallo

In the early hours of February 4, 1999, an unarmed 23-year-old Guinean student named Amadou Diallo (born September 2, 1975) was fired upon with 41 rounds and shot a total of 19 times by four New York City Police Department plainclothes officers: Sean Carroll, Richard Murphy, Edward McMellon, and Kenneth Boss. Carroll would later claim to have mistaken him for a rape suspect from one year earlier.

The four officers, who were part of the now-defunct Street Crime Unit, were charged with second-degree murder and acquitted at trial in Albany, New York. A firestorm of controversy erupted after the event, as the circumstances of the shooting prompted outrage both inside and outside of New York City. Issues such as police brutality, racial profiling, and contagious shooting were central to the ensuing controversy.

Early life

Amadou Diallo was one of four children born to Saikou and Kadiatou Diallo, and part of a historic Fulbe trading family in Guinea. He was born in Sinoe County in Liberia on September 2, 1975, while his father was working there, and while growing up followed his family to Togo, Singapore, Thailand, and back to Guinea. In September 1996, he followed other family members to New York City and started a business with a cousin. According to his family's lawyer he sought to remain in the United States by filing a political asylum application falsely claiming that he was from Mauritania and that his parents had been killed in fighting. He sold video cassettes, gloves, and socks on the sidewalk along 14th Street during the day.

Death

In the early morning of February 4, 1999, Diallo was standing near his building after returning from a meal. At about 12:40 a.m., officers Edward McMellon, Sean Carroll, Kenneth Boss and Richard Murphy were looking for an alleged serial rapist in the Soundview section of the Bronx. While driving down Wheeler Avenue, the police officers stopped their unidentified car and interrogated Diallo, who was in front of his apartment. When they ordered Diallo to show his hands, he supposedly ran into the apartment and reached into his pocket to show his wallet. Soon afterwards, assuming Diallo was drawing a firearm, the four officers fired 41 shots with semi-automatic pistols,Malcolm Gladwell. /www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLxYpLXkiVU ''How We Think Without Thinking: Malcolm Gladwell on Great Decision Makers (2005)'' hitting Diallo 19 times, fatally wounding him. Eyewitness Sherrie Elliott stated that the police continued to shoot even though Diallo was already down.

The investigation found no weapons on or near Diallo; what he had pulled out of his jacket was a wallet. The internal NYPD investigation ruled that the officers had acted within policy, based on what a reasonable police officer would have done in the same circumstances. Nonetheless, the Diallo shooting led to a review of police training policy and of the use of full metal jacket (FMJ) bullets.

On March 25, 1999, a Bronx grand jury indicted the four officers on charges of second-degree murder and reckless endangerment. On December 16, a court ordered a change of venue to Albany, New York because of pretrial publicity. On February 25, 2000, after three days of deliberation, a jury composed of four black and eight white jurors acquitted the officers of all charges.

Aftermath

In April 2000, Diallo's mother and father filed a $61million lawsuit against the city and the officers, charging gross negligence, wrongful death, racial profiling, and other violations of Diallo's civil rights. In March 2004, they accepted a $3 million settlement, one of the largest in the City of New York for a single man with no dependents under New York State's "wrongful death law", which limits damages to financial loss by the deceased person's next of kin. Anthony H. Gair, representing the Diallo family, argued that federal common law should apply.

In April 2002, as a result of the killing of Diallo and other controversial actions, the Street Crime Unit was disbanded. In 2003, Diallo's mother published a memoir, ''My Heart Will Cross This Ocean: My Story, My Son, Amadou'', with the help of author Craig Wolff.

Diallo's death became an issue in the 2005 New York City mayoral election. Bronx borough president and mayoral candidate Fernando Ferrer, who had protested against the circumstances of the killing at the time, was criticized by the Diallo family and many others for telling a meeting of police sergeants that although the shooting had been a tragedy, the officers had been "over-indicted".

Officer Kenneth Boss had previously been involved in an incident in which an unarmed black man was shot. After the trial Boss was reassigned to desk duty, but in October 2012, Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly restored Boss's ability to carry a firearm. As of 2012, he was the only one of the four officers still working for the NYPD. In 2015, he was promoted to sergeant in accordance with police policy, which is not subject to review by top department officials. He retired from law enforcement in 2019.

A report from ''Capital New York''
reported that 85 IP addresses belonging to the New York Police Department had made changes to Wikipedia pages about NYPD misconduct and also to articles about people killed in police interventions, including this article. One of these edits changed the statement ''"Officer Kenneth Boss had previously been involved in an incident in which an unarmed man was shot, but continued to work as a police officer"'' to ''"Officer Kenneth Boss was previously involved in an incident in which a man armed was shot.”'' Two policemen associated with these edits were reported to receive only "minor reprimands".

In April 2021, Diallo's mother was interviewed about her reaction to the conviction of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd.

Cultural references to Diallo

Music

*The song "I Know You Don't Care" by Ziggy Marley, Bunny Wailer, Buju Banton, Damian "Junior Gong" Marley, Morgan Heritage & Yami Bolo (2001) is in direct response to the acquittal of the officers accused of murdering Diallo. In the chorus Ziggy Marley sings, "Code of silence you say, yes your actions speak so loud and clear, Diallo's killers going free, Paid by society, And I know you don't care about me."
*Mentioned in the song ‘Senegal’ by Akon.
* Rapper Fredro Starr mentioned Diallo in the song “What If”
*The music of rapper 88-Keys;
* Bruce Springsteen's song "American Skin (41 Shots)";
*"Diallo" by Wyclef Jean;
*" New York City Cops" off The Strokes' debut album ''Is This It'' had the incident as the inspiration. Singer Julian Casablancas revealed that this was a political song influenced by the shooting of Amadou Diallo in a March 2018 ''Vulture'' interview.
*"I Find It Hard to Say (Rebel)" by Lauryn Hill;
*"Lament for the Late AD" by Terry Callier.
*The Public Enemy album '' There's a Poison Goin' On'' features a song titled "41:19" based on the number of rounds fired at and striking Diallo and contains lyrics concerning police harassment and violence.
*The song "W.O.L.V.E.S." by Krumbsnatcha and M.O.P., which appeared on the soundtrack for the 2001 film ''Training Day'' ("What happened to Diallo was a muthafuckin' shame").
*Electro pop band Le Tigre lamented the Diallo shooting in their song "Bang! Bang!", which ends with a vocal chorus counting numbers that ends with 41, the number of shots fired.
*In his song "The Other White Meat", which deals with police brutality and racism, New York rapper Immortal Technique tells the police "I got 41 reasons to tell you to suck a dick" and "Guns don't look like wallets", clearly referencing the shooting and counting every bullet fired as a reason.
*The incident was briefly mentioned by rapper Heems in his song "WOYY": "Diallo got shot when he said the block was hot" and again in his song "NYC Cops" from his 2012 mixtape Nehru Jackets: "Ousmane Zongo in '03, Diallo in '99, I swear this shit happened like ninety times."
*The piece "Amadou Diallo", included in the album '' Ethnic Stew and Brew'' by jazz trumpeter Roy Campbell, Jr., was inspired by the shooting, ending with a rapid burst of notes replicating the 41 gunshots.Hendrickson, Tad. ''Ethnic Stew and Brew'', Original Liner Notes.
*The incident also served as the basis for Erykah Badu's track "A.D. 2000" (the abbreviation standing for Diallo's initials), from the album ''Mama's Gun''. Rather than singing a condemnation of the NYPD, as had most other artists who were incensed by the event, Badu chose to sing an elegy which, while noting the tragedy of Diallo's killing, also observes the furor over the circumstances, which she viewed as likely to be temporary: "No you won't be namin' no buildings after me/To go down dilapidated ooh/No you won't be namin' no buildings after me/My name will be misstated, surely".
*In his album ''The Beautiful Struggle'', Talib Kweli speaks of "Brother Amadou as ..a modern day martyr." Kweli makes further reference to the shooting in his song " The Proud": "It's in they job description to terminate the threat/So 41 shots to the body is what he can expect".
*The underground rap artist Milo referenced Amadou quoting, "Surrounded by Anglos in Almelo, thinkin 'bout Amadou Diallo"
*The metal band Trivium wrote the song Contempt Breeds Contamination from their third album The Crusade about Diallo's death.
* Emawk has a song titled "Amadou.jpg" on his EP "Ifievercantmakeit.Jpg"
*Action Bronson has a song entitled "Amadu Diablo" from his mix tape "Blue Chips 2"
*The killing is referenced in Mischief Brew's song "Thanks, Bastards!" with lines like "For every time your gun goes off, a new rebel is born / So when there's 41 bullets / There's 41 thousand thorns in your side" and "Found a wallet, not a gun."
*The phrase "Mom, I'm going to college" is attributed as Amadou Diallo's last words, featured in the third movement of Joel Thompson's seven-movement cantata Seven Last Words of the Unarmed.
*Turkish rapper Saian referenced the killing on his protest rap track "Feleğin Çemberine 40 Kurşun" (english: "40 bullets to the circle of fortune") by saying " Adım Amadou Diallo, tam on dokuz kurşun yedim. Yargısız infaz gördüm, çünkü ben bir göçmenim." (english: My name is Amadou Diallo, I took nineteen bullets. I've had an extrajudicial execution because I'm an immigrant.")
* Tobe Nwigwe's song "Father Figure" features a verse from Royce da 5'9" referencing the killing with the line "Probably pop a cop or two to honor Breonna Taylor and Amadou Diallo".
*Italian dub-reggae-rocksteady band Africa Unite have written a song entitled "Forty-One Bullets" in their 2022 album "Non È Fortuna" strictly related to the Amadou Diallo killing.

Film

*In 2000, a group of human rights organizations completed ''The Day After Diallo'', a short video about police violence against people of color in the context of the killing of Amadou Diallo. The video was co-produced by WITNESS, New York City PoliceWatch and The Ella Baker Center for Human Rights.
* In the 2002 film ''Phone Booth'', the caller (voiced by Kiefer Sutherland) warns the main character Stu (played by Colin Farrell) not to move, telling him "you can get shot 41 times just for pulling out your wallet".

Visual arts

*A drawing by Art Spiegelman showing a police officer at a shooting gallery with a banner reading "41 shots 10¢" was featured on the cover of The New Yorker on March 8, 1999. 250 police officers picketed the magazine's headquarters in response.

Television

*In Law & Order, Season 13, Episode 7, “Open Season”, where an alleged cop-shooter is acquitted, Detective Ed Green references the killing as follows: “Yeah, well, you tell that to Amadou Diallo’s family…this whole blue wall thing, dinosaur.”
*In NYPD Blue, Season 6, Episode 20, "I'll Draw You A Map".
* Is covered in the bbc documentary by Louis Theroux ‘weird weekends- black nationalism’

Literature
* The case is mentioned in Charlie Huston's debut novel ''Caught Stealing'' in Part Three, the first chapter, where innocent men "get the Amadou Diallo treatment".

Poetry

* The poe
"Marionette"
by poet Ross Gay is dedicated to Diallo and describes his shooting.

See also

* American Skin (41 Shots)
* '' Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking''
* Civil rights
* Killing of Jayland Walker
* List of killings by law enforcement officers in the United States
* New York City Police Department corruption and misconduct
* Police brutality
* Police brutality in the United States
* Racial profiling

References

External links

Kadi Diallo's Trial
TedConover.com
* /archive.org/details/WITNESS_B00015 "The Day After Diallo" (Short film)*

{{DEFAULTSORT:Diallo, Amadou
New York City Police Department corruption and misconduct
Deaths by firearm in the Bronx
Deaths by person in New York City
1999 in New York City
Crimes in the Bronx
History of the Bronx
Police brutality in the United States
February 1999 events in the United States
Soundview, Bronx
1990s in the Bronx
Black Lives Matter
Law enforcement controversies in the United States