February 25, 2000: The Murderers of Amadou Diallo Are Acquitted

February 25, 2000, 25 years ago: Four New York police officers are acquitted of the charge of second-degree murder.

It was a disgraceful miscarriage of justice.

In 1996, Amadou Diallo, a native of the African nation of Liberia, came to America, and settled in New York City. On February 4, 1999, at about 12:40 AM, he was standing outside his apartment building on Wheeler Avenue in the Soundview section of The Bronx, when an unmarked police car pulled up.

Inside the car were Officers Edward McMellon, Sean Carroll, Kenneth Boss and Richard Murphy. They were looking for a serial rapist. They saw Diallo. Since they were white New York cops, and he was a young black male, they fell back on their prejudices, and assumed he was the man they were looking for.

They ordered Diallo to show his hands. He reached into his pocket to show his wallet, with his identification. All 4 officers assumed he was reaching for a gun, and pulled theirs, and opened fire.

They fired 41 shots, 19 of which hit Diallo. He never had a chance. He was dead at age 23. Sherrie Elliott, a witness, said that they continued to shoot after Diallo was down. When the body was searched, it was found to have nothing that could have been defined as a weapon.

The officers were not punished by the New York Police Department: An investigation ruled that they had acted within policy, based on what "a reasonable police officer would have done." On March 25, a Bronx grand jury disagreed, and indicted all 4 officers on the charges of second-degree murder and reckless endangerment.

In hindsight, the charge of criminally negligent homicide might have been easier to prove. On December 16, a court ordered a change of venue for the trial, thinking that the officers could not get a fair trial within the City of New York. The trial was moved to the State capital, Albany.

On February 25, 2000, after 3 days of deliberation, a jury -- 4 black people and 8 white people -- found the officers Not Guilty on all charges.

It had been just 8 years since the acquittal of 4 police officers for the brutal beating of a suspect in Los Angeles had led to some of the worst race rioting in American history. I was sure there would be a riot in New York. There was not.

Within days, Diallo's parents filed a $61 million lawsuit against the City, and the individual officers, charging gross negligence, wrongful death and racial profiling. In 2004, they accepted a $3 million settlement.

In 2001, McMellon and Murphy switched from the NYPD to the Fire Department of New York. They both served 10 years, and retired. Carroll left the NYPD in 2005. Boss remained, and was actually promoted to Sergeant, before retiring in 2019.

None of them was ever punished. Think about it: They fired 41 shots at an unarmed man, hitting him 19 times. That means they missed 23 times, an average of 6 misses per officer. They didn't get prison time for being too good at shooting; they didn't even get fired for being too bad at it.

Songs about the killing abound. Oddly, the most famous isn't by a black rapper, it's by a white rocker who was already 50 years old at the time: "American Skin" by Bruce Springsteen. The chorus of "41 shots" permeates the song. Some cops said they would refuse to provide security for Springsteen when he performed in the City.

Forty-one shots.

Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.

Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.

Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.

Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.

Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.

Bang.

Except the song sees the story from their perspective as well: "Is it a gun? Is it a knife? Is it a wallet? This is your life." For both cops and suspects, Bruce sang, "You can get killed just livin' in your American skin."

A person sympathetic to the police would say that these four men have to live with what they did for the rest of their lives, and that this should be punishment enough. A person who accepts that each officer fired at least one bullet that, all by itself, would have killed Amadou Diallo knows that they got away with, at the least, criminally negligent homicide; and, at the most, murder.

Police brutality in America has gotten worse since. And, as we have seen, the race of the cop matters less than the race of the suspect.

Black Lives Matter.

Blue Lives Matter.

All Lives Matter.

Even the lives of people who believe that some of those lives don't.