BY GLOVA SCOTT
NEW YORK - Angry protests over the cop killing of Amadou
Diallo, an immigrant worker from Guinea, continue almost daily
in this city. An overflow crowd - 1,000 inside and 1,000
outside - attended memorial services at the Islamic Cultural
Center of New York February 12. Two days later, a huge
motorcade accompanied the hearse that transported Diallo's
coffin to the Newark Airport for a burial back in West Africa.
Two thousand people attended another memorial service at
Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church February 15. And the
following day 600-700 demonstrators rallied outside the steps
of the Bronx Courthouse while a grand jury met to decide
whether to press criminal indictments against the four
policemen involved.
The four cops, members of a plainclothes "street crime unit," killed Diallo February 4 in a hail of 41 bullets as he stood in the entry hall of the apartment building where he lived in the Bronx. Diallo, 22, was hit by 19 bullets from powerful 9-mm guns at close range.
Patrolmen's Benevolent Association lawyer Stephen Worth asserted that the four cops - Kenneth Boss, Sean Carroll, Edward McMellon, and Richard Murphy -believed Diallo had a gun. He was, in fact, unarmed.
For Jason Paulino, Nilson Rosario, and Erick Nuņez, 16- year-old students from nearby All Hallows High School, the February 16 action at the Bronx Courthouse was their first rally against police brutality. They were finishing up a school project, saw the demonstration, and decided to join it. Paulino recalled seeing New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Police Commissioner Howard Safir on television claiming that if police were allowed to use hollow-tip, or "dum dum," bullets, they wouldn't need to shoot people 41 times. These bullets, which are currently banned, explode on entry into human flesh, causing graver injury.
"This is insulting to suggest that the use of hollow point bullets will stop cops from firing so many shots," Paulino said. His classmates agreed.
Clergymen and local politicians addressed the rally. Another action was announced to take place the next day in downtown Brooklyn demanding justice for Patrick Bailey. The 22-year-old Black man was shot in November 1997 by Boss, one of the four cops who killed Diallo. Bailey bled to death while handcuffed on the floor of his apartment building, while an ambulance waited outside.
Democratic Party politicians and other ruling-class figures have felt compelled to denounce Diallo's killing. All claim that the four cops involved are "bad apples" and with "better management," incidents of police abuse will lessen. The big-business press is running articles downplaying police abuse and citing statistics pointing to a drop in crime. The New York Times printed a lengthy article February 16 titled, "Refocusing Officers' Firearms Training," about teaching cops when to draw the weapons and when to hold fire.
About 83 percent of those fatally shot by police in the last five years were Black or Latino.
Moses Canello, originally from Peru, was among those who attended the rally at the Bronx Courthouse. "There is no word for what they did - 41 shots," he said. "One shot was one too many. I should be going to work. But I don't want to now."
Canello's anger was illustrated by the hundreds of protesters who lingered in the street in front of the courthouse for several hours. Organizers officially ended the noon rally after 45 minutes. Reggie Holmes, an office worker and messenger, said he attended an earlier protest on Wheeler Avenue in the block where Diallo lived. Lucy Turull, with Parents Against Police Brutality, said she had been at every single action that had been called. Both plan to attend future protests.
Around 2:30 p.m. police finally forced people onto the sidewalks and opened the street to traffic, although a small group of 40 insisted on marching around the courthouse.
Another protest has been called for February 22, from 4:30 p.m.-6:30 p.m. at City Hall.