Socialist Action /March 1999
New Yorkers Protest Cop Killing of Ahmed Diallo
By MARILYN VOGT-DOWNEY
NEW YORK-When four cops gunned down Amadou Ahmed Diallo in the doorway
to his home at 12:45 a.m. on Feb. 4, they made the institutionalized brutality
and racism of the New York City Police Department into an international
issue.
The victim of this police murder was a 22-year-old African immigrant
from Guinea in western Africa. Unarmed, described by those who knew him
as "a pious Muslim never in trouble with the law," Amadou died
in a hail of 41 bullets from the cops' 16-shot, 9mm semi-automatic weapons.
Nineteen bullets riddled Diallo's body, in less than 10 seconds rupturing
his aorta, spinal cord, lungs, liver, spleen, kidney, and intestines-and
causing his immediate death.
The cops, part of the "elite" Street Crimes Unit (SCU) of the
NYPD, claimed that they had killed Amadou because, according to one of the
cops' attorneys, "he was acting strange" and fit "in a generic
way" the description of a rapist the cops were hunting.
Amadou was Black and the four cops are white. Police sketches of the
rapist indicate that the "generic" similarity consisted of the
fact that both Amadou and the suspect were Black men with a moustache-a
description of many thousands of men in New York City.
Although the four cops through their lawyer claimed that Amadou had exhibited
"aggressive behavior," he was unarmed, carrying only his wallet,
cell phone, and keys when they killed him.
According to friends, Amadou, a street vendor, had returned home from
work at approximately 11:30 p.m. on Feb. 3. He spoke briefly with his roommate
and then left their shared apartment in a two-story brick house on a quiet
street in the Bronx to get something to eat.
The four cops-Edwards McMellon, Sean Carroll, Kenneth Boss, and Richard
Murphy-prowling the neighborhood in plain clothes and an unmarked car, spotted
Diallo in his doorway, "suspected" him of being the rapist, double-parked
in front of his building, and within seconds drew their guns and slaughtered
him.
McMellon and Carroll emptied their guns into Amadou, each firing their
16 rounds; Boss fired five shots and Murphy fired four shots.
The Bronx District Attorney's office has not arrested the cops or even
tried to interview them. The NYPD did, however, eventually confiscate the
four cops' 9mm automatics, replace them with service revolvers, and reassign
the cops to administrative duty-of course, with pay.
A grand jury to consider whether to indict them was convened the week
of Feb. 15.
Giuliani defends cops
Mayor Rudolf Giuliani, who has been an eager executor of the U.S. ruling
class's attacks on working people at all levels during his two administrations
and who is notorious for promoting aggressive police behavior, expressed
regret at Amadou's death.
However, he defended the police and particularly the SCU, which over
the past two years has been increased from 100 to 438 members.
Of the cops who killed Amadou, Giuliani said: "All had good records."
But that is not true. Three of the four have had brutality complaints filed
against them with the Civilian Complaints Review Board.
McMellon, Carroll, and Boss had all previously shot "suspects."
Boss had murdered an unarmed man named Pat Baily in October 1997, a crime
for which he has yet to be charged.
Due to the international storm raised by this incident, Giuliani was
forced to cancel a two-day campaign trip to Texas; Giuliani is being groomed
for national political office and planned to meet with Texas Gov. George
W. Bush.
Instead, he met on Feb. 7 with the Guinean ambassador to the United States,
Mohammed Aly Thiam, and Guinea's ambassador to the United Nations, Mahawa
Bangoura Kamara, in a public relations effort to feign concern about the
death of the Guinean immigrant.
Thousands join protest rallies
Amadou's murder prompted immediate protests of outrage, which have occurred
almost daily since Feb. 4. For example:
- The Center for Constitutional Rights called for the appointment of
a special prosecutor.
- The president of the United African Congress, Sidique Abubakarr Wai,
charged New York City officials with flagrant disregard for African lives
and condemned their failure to aggressively seek the murderers of "several
dozen Senegalese cabdrivers who have been killed over the past decade or
so" (The New York Times, Feb. 6).
- The leaders of "100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care" called
for a federal investigation and declared the SCU "a danger to New
Yorkers."
- Amnesty International on Feb. 5 said the slaying "raises deeply
troubling questions about the use of excessive force and police brutality
and called for an independent commission of inquiry." In 1996, Amnesty
International had issued a study documenting police brutality and racism
in New York City and calling for a system of broad civilian oversight.
- The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights sent a letter to Attorney General
Janet Reno asking her to investigate the shooting of Diallo.
- NAACP President Kweisi Mfume on Feb. 7 condemned the shooting as "excessive
force at its worst" and called upon the U.S. Justice Department to
"use every possible vehicle to get the facts involved in the case
and make sure that justice is fair and swift" (The New York Times,
Feb. 8).
- Aboubacar Dione, first consul of the Guinea permanent delegation to
the United Nations noted that "people back home-the entire African
continent-is following this case. They don't understand why these four
[killer cops] are still free" (The New York Times, Feb. 9).
Demonstrations and rallies of several thousand people were held on Feb.
7 outside the murder scene in the Bronx; on Feb. 8 outside the Supreme Court
Building in downtown Manhattan; and on Feb. 12 when a memorial meeting for
Amadou was held after noon prayers at New York's Central Mosque, which Mayor
Giuliani briefly attended.
Amadou's mother, Kadiadou Diallo, who flew in from Guinea, and his father,
Saikou Diallo, who flew in from Vietnam soon after the murder participated
in press conferences and protests. They joined with thousands of others-many
of them African immigrants-in demanding that the cops be prosecuted for
murder.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, a prominent New York City organizer, along with
his National Action Network of protests against police brutality, organized
the immediate protests and other events demanding the arrest of the cops
and escorted Amadou's parents' during their stay.
Amadou's parents refused to accept any gifts or token gestures from Giuliani
or to meet with him in private until the cops who murdered their son were
arrested. The parents enlisted the assistance of high-profile legal specialists
such as attorneys Barry Scheck and Johnnie Cochran to press the case for
prosecution of the killer cops.
Hundreds of the thousands of mourners who attended the Central Mosque
memorial meeting stretched out their hands to touch Amadou's simple pine
coffin as it was carried from the mosque to the hearse.
On Feb. 13, thousands of protesters gathered in various parts of the
city to say farewell to the Diallo family and Amadou. A 600-car caravan
followed the hearse carrying Diallo's body from a Harlem send-off meeting
to Newark Airport. Amadou's parents, accompanied by Al Sharpton, took the
body to be buried in Guinea.
Upon their arrival in Conakry, Guinea, among the thousands who greeted
the grieving parents were the Guinea government's prime minister and entire
cabinet and a hundred people wearing "Amadou" T-shirts.
Many accompanied the family and the body on the six-hour journey to Hollande
Bourou, the Diallo ancestral village, where after a funeral attended by
some 2000 relatives and family friends, Amadou was buried.
Meanwhile, since then, protests continue on a daily basis outside the
Bronx courthouse where the grand jury is convened and in the streets. For
example, on Sunday, Feb. 21, the entire congregation of the Love Fellowship
Tabernacle, some 400 strong, left church and marched across the Brooklyn
Bridge to City Hall to protest the killing.
The SCU: "We own the night"
The mayor's office released figures hoping to minimize widely-held perceptions
of police brutality: "Only" 19 civilians were killed by cops in
1998, "down" from 20 in 1997 and 30 in 1996.
However, according to Joel Berger, an attorney who has monitored police
misconduct, claims of police misconduct rose 45 percent from July 1993 to
June 1997. Monetary settlements to victims-paid by the tax-payers-went up
38 percent during that period, to $27.5 million.
To promote the reputation of the Street Crimes Unit, the NYPD claimed
that the SCU with its enlarged number, less than 2 percent of the entire
police force, is responsible for 40 percent of all gun arrests in the city
each year. "But prosecutors have said the unit's aggressive tactics,
including searches and chases without probable cause, have sometimes led
judges to throw out cases," according to The New York Times
of Feb. 11.
According to Eric Adams, a city police lieutenant who heads the "100
Blacks in Law Enforcement" organization, the SCU has "been given
carte blanche to do as it will to the people of the City of New York, especially
the African American community" (The New York Times, Feb. 6).
Another cop told a reporter for The Times (Feb. 15): "There are
guys who are willing to toss anyone who's walking with his hands in his
pockets. ... We frisk 20, maybe 30 people a day. Are they all by the book?
Of course not; it's safer and easier to just toss people.
"And if it's the 25th of the month and you haven't got your gun
yet? Things can get a little desperate." Each SCU cop is evidently
expected to seize at least 1 gun per month.
Known for their motto, "We own the night," some of the SCU
cops designed a T-shirt for the unit emblazoned with a quotation from Ernest
Hemingway epitomizing their bloodthirsty nature:
"Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those
who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it never really care for
anything else thereafter."
Removing Giuliani is not a solution
The aggressive policing supported by the Giuliani administration will
not be stopped by removing Giuliani, as some protesters hope.
Giuliani's policies, like those of all Republican and Democratic party
politicians, are designed to serve the needs of the capitalist class, which
is in deep trouble on a global scale because of a crisis of overproduction
and declining profit rates. The capitalists need to drive down the standard
of living of the working class and make people work for less.
Giuliani's policies, as a result, are those prescribed by the capitalist
rulers everywhere-cutbacks in social services, health care, and education;
cuts in wages and benefits for workers; lay-offs; privatization of public
services; and austerity budgets.
For example, on Feb. 19, the Giuliani administration announced it would
implement a plan to compel New York City's homeless to be enrolled in "workfare"-working
as much as 35 hours a week for their welfare check-to stay in city shelters.
This affects immediately 4600 families and 7000 single adults. Children
of families excluded from shelters would be placed in foster care.
While cutting the social budget, however, the politicians can always
find money for more police weaponry, increased police powers that undermine
the Bill of Rights, more prisons, and a bigger military budget. Clinton
just found an additional $112 billion to add to the military budget over
the next few years.
Meanwhile, the police are encouraged to ride rough-shod, particularly
in the communities of African Americans and other peoples of color. The
police are used to terrorize these communities lest the people begin to
rebel, which, as the most oppressed, they have been inclined to do.
What must be done?
Amnesty International in its 1996 report noted that although 125 people
were shot dead by cops between 1985 and 1990 alone, only one cop was convicted
of a criminal charge during that period.
Since then-although another killer cop, Francis X. Livoti, was acquitted
by a New York judge of charges of criminally negligent homicide after he
killed Anthony Baez with a deadly choke-hold in 1994-federal prosecutors
in 1997 convicted Livoti for civil rights violations and sentenced him to
seven and a half years in prison.
But this conviction was only due to the persistent efforts of the Baez
family, who have virtually devoted their lives since 1994 to mobilizing
hundreds of street and courtroom protests and making Anthony's case a topic
of public discussion.
That is the only way there will be any justice in the case of Amadou
Diallo. Broad protests must be organized involving labor, church, campus,
and community groups to demand the arrest and prosecution of the four killer
cops-McMellon, Carroll, Boss and Murphy.
The protests-initially mostly Black-have begun to include broader sectors
of the population. They must continue to expand to include the vast sectors
of white workers who need to become conscious that the fight against racism
and the brutality of the NYPD against their coworkers in the Black community
is their fight too.
The protests also provide the opportunity to begin organizing to get
the cops out of the Black community and to establish Black control of the
Black community and the police.
Socialist Action /March 1999 |