Simple, in most African nations the FIRST thing the Cops/MP's ask for is an ID. Coupled with his not understanding English to well, and you can see why he would reach for his wallet as a matter of habit. The real fault in this case is with those DAMN MUDERERING COPS! Most police are decent people, but those 4 give all officers a bad name. Basically, they thought "Black man, KILL KILL KILL!!!!" I mean 41 shot?!? 2-3 shots per officer whould be understandable(not RIGHT), but...

-- Crono (Crono@timesend.com), February 26, 2000

Answers

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell1.asp

-- Vern (bacon17@ibm.net), February 26, 2000.

THE TRAGIC SHOOTING of Amadou Diallo, for which four New York policemen are currently on trial, has a personal resonance for me. Many years ago, at about the same time of night -- around midnight -- I came within a heartbeat of shooting someone who was also acting suspiciously and seemed to pose a threat to me.

I was a young Marine on guard duty that night, in an ammunition dump out in the boondocks at Camp Lejeune, N.C. Nobody else was supposed to be out there and the next nearest guard was a mile away. Yet I could hear the soft sound of someone trying to sneak up toward me from behind an ammunition shed.

When he turned the corner and I said "Halt!" he froze in his tracks. Had he made a false move, like Amadou Diallo, I would have filled him full of lead.

My mysterious visitor turned out to be the sergeant of the guard, sneaking up on me to see if I were asleep on duty, for which I could have been court-martialed. Nobody tried that again.

In cases involving police shootings, some people are quick to jump to conclusions, even when they are completely ignorant of guns and have never faced the dangerous situations faced by the police.

In the Diallo case, it is hard to think of a single thing that the cops should have done differently -- or that I would have done differently in their shoes. There are some things that Amadou Diallo should have done differently, such as not run away from the police and then turn around and pull something out of his jacket to point toward them in a dimly lit hallway. What he held out toward them was his wallet. But they discovered that only after the shooting was over and he was dead.

People who know nothing about guns are quick to exclaim at how many bullets are fired in police shooting cases. To ask why you need to shoot somebody so many times is a legitimate question from someone seeking knowledge. But it is arrogant ignorance from someone convinced that he knows something is wrong.

Pistol shooting can be very inaccurate, especially in stressful, life-and-death situations. In the Diallo case, more than half the shots missed. In other cases, several times as many shots have missed as hit.

Often you have no way of knowing whether you have hit or missed until after the other person goes down -- and even then, you can't be sure that he is unable to fire back.

Some of the hopelessly unrealistic questions asked by the prosecutor were obviously meant to exploit the jurors' ignorance. "Did you see any muzzle flash coming from Mr. Diallo's direction?" If cops are supposed to wait until they see a muzzle flash before they fire, we are going to see a lot more policemen's funerals. However, as Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said, "The number of dead policemen is of no interest to liberals."

"Did you shoot at Mr. Diallo's legs?" was another prosecution question. Sharpshooting like this might be tried in the peace and serenity of a pistol range, but hardly in a situation where your own life is on the line, when you just fire in his direction and hope to hit something.

Yet another prosecution ploy that appeals to ignorance was asking witnesses how many seconds the shooting went on and citing expert testimony that guns like those carried by the police can be emptied in five seconds of shooting.

Studies have shown that most people have no conception of how long a second is. The seconds these witnesses were talking about are unlikely to have any relationship to the seconds actually measured by experts when test-firing weapons.

Nobody in his right mind stands in front of someone with a gun for five consecutive seconds on the clock. You do what the cops did -- fire a burst and then jump back out of the line of fire, while someone else fires another burst and jumps back.

Much has been made of a pause in the shooting described by witnesses. With cops firing and jumping back out of the line of fire, there was probably more than one pause from any given policeman, even if the gunfire from other policemen made the shooting seem continuous for a while. If there was a moment when they were all not shooting, that would have been a pause that witnesses could have noticed.

The insinuation from all this talk about a pause is that the cops fired continuously, had time to see that Amadou Diallo was helpless and yet wantonly resumed shooting. But an insinuation is hardly proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

Or does that basic principle of the law matter in this highly politicized case?

JWR contributor Thomas Sowell, a fellow at the Hoover Institution, is author, most recently, of The Quest for Cosmic Justice.

-- Vern (bacon17@ibm.net), February 26, 2000.

Comming to your Neighborhood soon.I hope they try this Stunt in the"Eye for an Eye"Neighborhood.Some Police Protection!!Do you realize how many Gov. employed,Kooks,with or without Uniforms are crawling around in these United States with a loaded Gun in their Pocket??I call for an IMMEDIATE End to this Insanity of arming every Gov.Employee,that claims,he needs a Gun in the Performance of his Duties.The levels and Duplication of "Law Enforcement"is absurd.Its Time to start enforcing the LAW at the Top(corporate Gangsters,Hoods,Assasins,Lobbyists etc),so our elected People can do their Job,they were hired for,without being terrorized by that Scum.The Rest will take care of itself.

-- Ronnie (I@dont.remember), February 26, 2000.

Why did 4 black men on the jury vote to acquit the police officers? That is what I want to know.

-- (formerly@nowhere.zzz), February 26, 2000.

formerly,
I heard the jurors were 2 white females, 4 black females and 6 white males.

-- JM (even@it.up), February 26, 2000.

I have a question.

What types of guns were these police officers shooting, and what caliber?

I truly am ignorant of the details of this case, and am trying to learn more.

Seems to me that if their clips would only hold 5-6 rounds, each officer had to reload at least once(assuming they weren't using revolvers, and also assuming they weren't using some kind of auto or semi-auto with an extended clip). If this guy already had a bunch of lead in him and was down, why reload?

Wondering,

Don

-- Shimoda (enlighten@me.com), February 26, 2000.

Crono, I agree with you about why this young man pulled out his wallet. It was the first thing I thought about too. He was a foreigner in a strange land. He probably froze/panicked and started to do just what he would have done in Africa -- show his ID. What a pity. What a loss. A sad event for all involved.

-- Lurkess (Lurkess@Lurking.XNet), February 26, 2000.

In response to a question raised-the NYPD currently issues the Glock 17 semi-automatic pistol. This gun has an ammo capacity of 17 rounds of 9mm Parabellum ammunition in the magazine plus 1 round in the chamber. Until this shooting, the NYPD issued full metal jacket ammo. It is my understanding that due to this shooting, they now issue hollow-point ammo. The importantance of this is, A-hollow-points are much better man-stoppers than full metal jacket, and B-the fact is that hollow-points when properely placed in the target require fewer rounds to put a man down and cause him to no longer be a threat to you. The fact that you did not have to shoot him as much means that although you might have caused more damage to him, you ALSO put fewer holes in him which resulted in LESS damage for the medics to treat,(assuming he lives that long of course). Stopping power is NOT the same as KILLING power! The reason that the police were issued this ammo in the first place was that various groups, usually out of ignorance of the subject, such as the ACLU, object to police being issued such ammo for "political" reasons. These statements I have just made are easy to check out for accuracy-just make sure you check a source that does not have an "agenda".

-- J.B. (Kasinefect@aol.com), February 26, 2000.

The police use hollow-point ammunition also because it is less likely to go through several walls, and will not go as far on a ricochet. The fact that this group shot at the subject 41 times bothers me as well.

gene

-- gene (ekbaker@essex1.com), February 26, 2000.

"Why did 4 black men on the jury vote to acquit the police officers?"

Four black women actually, but same question applies. Because they reviewed the evidence, without being exposed to all the media hype and political rabble-rousing, and determined that the officers weren't guilty. Not of murder, not of manslaughter due to negligence, not of reckless endangerment, not nothing.

Life is not fair. Bad things happen. Last week here in Philadelphia a tire came off of a fast-moving car on in interstate, flew across the median, hit another car and a young woman was killed. I feel for the Diallo family just as I feel for that woman's family; I can't begin to imagine the unspeakable grief that both families must be going through. But that doesn't mean someone is criminally responsible.

Not every tragic, untimely, premature death is because someone violated someone else's civil rights. By all accounts, Diallo's death resulted from a comedy (albeit not at all funny) of errors. He didn't deserve to die, just as that woman on I-95 didn't deserve to die. But they both did. We need to console the families and move on.

-- Markus Archus (apxov@mail.com), February 26, 2000.

Formerly, Perhaps, the four black members of the jury, along with all the other skin colors serving in the same capcity, had sufficient access to all of the known and demonstrable facts, to render, in my mind at any rate, an entirely just verdict. This case is one vast tragedy for every person involved. The victim was swallowed whole, in a few seconds, by every instinct he had developed when confronted by sudden danger. We'll never know what went through his head as he ran down that corridor. Scared people run simply because they're scared. The locked door forced him to turn quickly and reach into his back pocket. The pursuing officers are scared too. I've known that terror myself. We used to say that "it was better to be tried by twelve than carried by six." Most people who shoot at cops do so after a brief attempt at fleeing. Fire from parked autos is a notable exception to that general rule. In almost every other case, fire is received when the suspect finds flight blocked or, more rarely, less preferable to shooting. Add to this the dark hall, the neighborhood, the nature of the police squad involved, their original task, the victim's sudden move and, very importantly, the falling of one of the officers as soon as the shooting started. Each of these events become sterile after the fact. During the event they are the white caps in a storm of adrenline charged emotion that few people actual have ever experienced. The number of shots is easy to understand for anyone who has ever been in any type of gun fight with any number of opponents. There is no such thing as TOO much firepower when your life is in danger and you have firepower at your disposal. Frenzy or more aptly, the "mad minute" is standard procedure for armed professionals who think that they are being fired at and see one of their number go down. If frenzy wasn't the governing factor Mr. Diablo would have been hit by far more of the fire put out by the police. Another writer (I'm sorry, but I forgot his name) was being very accurate when he told of the ratio of fire-to-hits during high tension events. Aiming at "center of mass" and firing as rapidly as possible, while moving backwards, with a semi-automatic hand gun of combat calibre, makes the third round onward highly improbable; flash, fear, smoke, perephiral 'noise,' and other factors disturb greatly your ability to assess the effects of your fire. From what I've been able to gather, the victim might have been nearly invisible through the second half of his fall and, as important, didn't fall at all during the initial second or two of the police volley. The politization of this case for narrow and cynical purposes is really secondary to the case itself. The quality of the rhetoric is banal and typical of those who 'speak' it. It really 'speaks' for itself. What can we do except mourn? We can gain a little appreciation for the worlds that came briefly into focus for us in this horrible event. The "Street" is fast, exciting, vibrant, intensely interesting, and, more often than not, deadly. Its a kind of seductive war with all kinds of crazy characters, 'players,'. For the most part they are, at the least, survivors and, at worst, barbarians. I don't know what Mr. Diablo knew about the street but he knew one of the first rules anyway; "five-O-I gotta go!" Running from the cops is what you do; it doesn't make any difference whether your doing anything wrong or not. Often, being innocent is, itself, the reasonable thing to do. The rules are different out there past the 'stoop.' Being in that environment changes the person who stays. Dying there is a REAL possibility. How many of us, whatever the color, would really take the chance of being wrong in a situation like the one that confronted the cops that night? Take it a little easy on the jury. Color doesn't, or rather shouldn't, presuppose any particular point of view. Bravo for them!

Gary

-- Gary (gwinthorp@hotmail.com), February 26, 2000.

The cops did the only thing they could do, considering the split second "situation" in a dimly lit stair well.

The problem is that they were there in the first place.

But wait, you say, with crime rampant, they HAD to be there.

No.

The reason crime is rampant, and by extention, the "justification" for them being there, is because in NYC it is impossible for ANYONE other than cops, crooks, and The Rich to be armed to DEFEND themselves.

If the people in that neighborhood were able to obtain and carry pistols, there wouldn't be a crime problem, and there wouldn't be a need for "shock forces" in blue to patrol their way into tragic situations like this one.

-- Charles Underwood Farley (chuck@u.farley), February 26, 2000.

What I want to know is:

1) Why is always black folks (and other minorities) that are gunned down in police "incidents" such as these?

2) If a white man in the suburbs had died in the same way, would the reaction have been the same ("too bad, cops were doing thier job, the dude shouldn't have acted as he did".)

3) If cops are allowed to shoot folks with impunity by mistaking wallets for guns, etc..., what should you do when approached by cops? stand still --- "oh, he was standing still, we thought he had a concealed weapon", try to tell them you are unarmed "oh, he opened his mouth, we though he had aids and was going to bite us", okay you get the point, cops have to be held accountable for their "mistakes". someone died because the cops were overzealous, nervous, untrained, etc... but if you kill someone you have to face the consequences.

4) will a criminal who kills someone while robbing a bank dodge murder charges for the same reason (i.e., i thought he had a gun, it was self-defence):

-- Jiminy Cricket (aaa@aaa.com), February 26, 2000.

Jimmy,

When do the trials of the Waco and the Ruby Ridge killers begin? Waco looks like premeditation to me.

-- Mr. Pinochle (pinochledd@aol.com), February 26, 2000.

Let me tell you a couple of stories. There was a lady who was at the wrong place at the wrong time. She was spending the holiday with friends on New Years Eve 1975. After midnight came and went on New Year's morning and all of the gun shooting was over, she excused herself and went to bed for a few hours. She was awakened a little while later to gunfire. She thought she'd only been asleep for a couple of minutes because of the guns. She walked out of the room and into the living room and had to hit the floor. There were guns flying over her head into the house.

What had happened was that her friends husband (high on PCP) started hallucinating. He called the police to report that he'd seen a prowler. When the police got there, they knocked on the door. He opened the door and thought the police officers were the prowlers, so, he shot one of the police officer's head right off of his body. Well of course they called in reinforcements. They blocked off the street and began war. By the way, there were 7 children, 1 grandmother and and uncle in the house besides the shooter, his wife and the other lady. The shooter kept shooting back putting everyone's life in jeapordy. Finally, the shooter became bold enough to leave the house and go outside and get this prowler. After 23 bullets, he finally died.

His brother, a very mild mannered man, then went out of the back door around to the front to tell the police that it was over. They saw him and killed him too. Finally the police went into the house where there were only women and children left and made them all get into the police cars. The above mentioned woman (who was asleep) was the last one to leave the house. The officer asked her if there was anyone left in the house. She told him no. He put the rifle behind her ear and told her that if she was lying he'd blow her brains out right on the spot. Of course she was telling the truth. After they loaded her into the police car she heard one of them say "we should have killed all of those damned niggers". When you kill one of there's or they even think you've killed one of there's, they think "kill". This woman and her family were on the run, moving from place to place for a good while because they kept getting phone calls threatening her family's lives. If finally stopped after a while. Think it was the cops?

Story number 2-Racial profiling: There was a guy about the age of 22 who asked his friend if she would let him use her car to go to school for the day because his was on the blink. She told him he could but told him to come straight back with it because she had to go to the laundry and wash her clothes. As a matter of fact, her dirty clothes were in the back seat of the car.

On his way home from school he was pulled over (for no good reason). The cops sat him out on the curve with his hands behind his head while they went through the car illegally. They went through all of the dirty clothes, dumping them on the sidewalk. After they found nothing they let him go. No ticket; no nothing. Later, he was angry, and his friend was embarrased because her dirty panties were dumped on a public street.

I can go on and on with these stories. Did they report these situations to anyone? No. Did they try to sue? No. Such is life in the black world.

By the way, that lady in the first story was my mother. It was my family running from the cops; yes, I'm black. And that was my car and my dirty laundry the cops dumped on the street. Maybe next time I'll tell you about the time a cop beat me up.

Jane Doe

-- Jane Doe (janeadoe@janedoe.com), February 26, 2000.

Guns flying-yeah right! Bullets, bullets, Bullets. You know what I mean. And he sat on the curb.

-- Jane Doe (janedoe@janedoe.com), February 27, 2000.

Sitting here in the house, infront of the computer, where life is safe, makes it real easy for me to "arm chair quarterback" the guys involved in this shooting. Nobody is pointing a gun at my head, and my life isn't in danger!

If I or you, were the guys out on the street, and were in pursuit of someone running, and then the guy goes to pull something out of his pocket, wonder how each of us here would have reacted?

-- suzy (suzy@nowhere.com), February 27, 2000.

Why do innocent people run.In Vietnam there was a saying--"anyone that runs is VC,the ones standing still are well trained VC!!!Shoot'em all!!!Not right then and not right now!!!

-- just a thought (tigerpm@netscape.com), February 27, 2000.

Why don't any of these nightmares happen in Vermont? Because in Vermont, anyone who wants to can carry a gun with no permit required.

Vermont has the lowest crime rate in the country. Probably the lowest police brutality rate too I bet.

When only the cops and the crooks are armed, the crooks get bold, and the cops become bullies.

-- Charles Underwood Farley (chuck@u.farley), February 27, 2000.

suzy, you wrote:

"Sitting here in the house, infront of the computer, where life is safe, makes it real easy for me to "arm chair quarterback" the guys involved in this shooting. Nobody is pointing a gun at my head, and my life isn't in danger! "

yeah, well Amado Diallo wasn't armed! He wasn't pointing a gun at anyone! No one was in danger except for him! Get your facts straight!!! Like I said, what would you say if a white guy in the suburbs were gunned down like Diallo was? I'll bet that your comments would not be so sympathetic to the officers involved.

Why were the cops after Diallo in the first place? They admitted during the trial that he did not resemble the guy they were looking for. They just decided to hassle the first person they saw. Think about that.

-- Jiminy Cricket (aaa@aaa.com), February 27, 2000.

35 years ago in East Los Angeles, when I was working in a uniformed patrol assignment, a young Hispanic man refused to stop running from us despite our calling for him to halt. We chased him onto a pedestrian overpass which crossed the 10 freeway. It was night time, but there was plenty of ambient light so we did not need our flashlights. In the middle of the overpass he stopped, turned to face us and reached into his back pocket. We fired 12 rounds because that was all we had. We would have fired 100 rounds if we had them. He had no gun. He was reaching for a printed card which stated in English that he was a deaf/mute. I missed him 6 times. My partner got him twice in the chest. We were no more than 10 or 15ft. away. I am Hispanic (Mexican/American) To this day I am saddened by the incident, but given the same circumstances today, I would have reacted the same way. We never did find out why he was skulking around people's back yards.

I love that line out of the, "Great Lubowski" "Some days you eat the bar, some days the bar eats you"

-- Bill in South Carolina (notaclue@webtv.net), February 27, 2000.

Good morning. The most important lesson this tragic incident teaches us is that our LE folks are not trained well in the use of their weapons. These guys should have been able to drop the poor guy quickly, without shooting up the building. They might even have been able to wound rather than kill, though I don't believe you should EVER shoot to wound.

As to whether the shooting should have happened at all is a moot point. It did and the guy is dead. Anyone who has been in combat knows that the adrenolin overload eliminates control. Cops, at least the ones I know, view their job as a form of combat.

Michael

-- michael frazier (mfrazier@pacific.net), February 27, 2000.

Jane, thanks for sharing what I'm sure are painful memories; it was very informative and enlightening.

-- Markus Archus (apxov@mail.com), February 27, 2000.

My dad also "stopped" an inquisitive officer late at night near an ammo dump - with a loaded weapon aimed at the officer. Happened to be in South Korea, but the same lesson applies.

The current screams of racism are politically inspired - deliberately - by those whose only platform is to continue (or start!) a race war - so they (themselves) can profit with political power, money, and appearances before a willing press.

Anybody in the press point out the hatred and racism in Sharpton's behaivor and attitude?

---...---

I'm also truly sorry it happened at all, Crono - but your conclusions, your statements are unjustified and unwarranted.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), February 28, 2000.