Diallo Verdict

Great Debates
1

Thursday night, hours before jury returned the Diallo verdict, I was stopped for speeding. We’d just bought the car a few weeks ago, and I had a difficult time finding the temporary registration when the cop came up and asked to see the usual stuff. I wound up having to reach into the legroom of the back seat.

For all the cop knew, I could have been reaching for a gun down there. Fortunately for me, he refrained from shooting in ‘self-defense’.

I’m thinking, of course, that my actions were just as potentially interpretable as dangerous as were those of Amadou Diallo. I’m white, which helped, I’m sure. Diallo was black, young, and lived in a rough neighborhood, which hurt. The NYPD police interpreted his reach for a wallet with his ID much diferently than the Park Police on Suitland Parkway interpreted my nervously digging around behind the passenger seat for my registration.

Why did I get to go on my way, while Diallo wound up dead in a hail of bullets?

“No person shall be…deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,” says the Fifth Amendment. Whatever one’s thoughts are on Friday’s verdict, Diallo was deprived of his very life by government representatives without anything remotely resembling due process of law.

Where does the blame lie for this deprivion of the most basic right?

I’ve got some sympathy for the cops. They have to make split-second decisions based on an extremely incomplete picture of what’s going on. Still, the number of ‘I thought s/he had a gun’ shootings keeps on ticking upward.

How does one prevent, or morally resolve, such situations? Specifically, I’m talking about situations where Person A has a gun and Person B doesn’t, but A thinks B might be carrying and might be a threat - so shoots first just in case. A couple of months ago, two upscale Atlanta women had a confrontation like that off an expressway outside of town, and one of them shot the other dead. It isn’t just the slums anymore.

There are just too many ways someone can look like they’re reaching for a weapon. If we are insistent on being a society with an abundance of firearms, is there a way to avoid such situations? It seems to me that that condition will inevitably and frequently produce situations where one person has to kill another, without knowing if they’re armed, in order to make sure they stay alive.

How do we prevent these kinds of encounters from ending up fatally, whether or not they involve the police? Or are they simply inevitable in a gun-saturated society?

2

good morning friends.
friend firefly, you asked:

i find the verdict in this case unsettling. i admit that i am basing this on just news reports. the trial testimony surely had information that i had no access to.

my concern is the “accidental” nature of this incident. the unfortunate death of this poor man was written of by our judicial system as an accident.

this is my question: how do four highly trained law enforcement
professionals “accidently” shoot someone 41 times? (one round reportedly entered the bottom of the victim’s foot, suggesting that the highly trained men were still firing after the victim was laying on the ground)

i won’t go as far as to suggest that this was a case of murder, but it seems to me to be at least an indication of the incompetentcy of the officers involved.

Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity -Kahlil Gibran

3

Forty-one shots, nineteen of which struck the victim. Four cops, spread out, guns drawn and aimed at Mr. Diallo. Diallo pulls out his wallet and the cops fire approximately ten shots each, half of which strike the victim.
Something really stinks here. I’m just not sure what it is. Maybe more will come to light in the civil trial. I hope so.
Peace,
mangeorge

I only know two things;
I know what I need to know
And
I know what I want to know
Mangeorge, 2000

4

I do not think that these officers were criminally responsible; however, I think that NYC is at least responsible for monetary damages. I think part of this problem may be that officers always fire so many rounds at suspects; one well placed round will disable a suspect but probably will not kill them. On the subject of Diallo’s race, I think the fact that he is a minority has caused even greater scrutiny in the case. Here in Denver a little while back a man driving away from police in his car was fired at about thirty five times from three police. Only now, after several-botched no-knock raids where innocent people were killed and a news helicopter caught drug suspects being beaten after they were controlled has the Denver police chief finally resigned at the insistence of our mayor.

You know, doing what is right is easy. The problem is knowing what is right.

–Lyndon B. Johnson

5

Just a couple of things…

These cops were stopping Diallo becasue he fit the description of a rapist. They were not ordinary cops doing a routine stop. They were part of a task force doing high risk arrests.

I agree that this seems like a reasonable line of thinking. Unfortunately it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. By looking at all the data in every county in America for the last 18 years, John Lott has shown that crime decreases when law abiding citizens are allowed to carry concealed firearms. In addition, crime continues to decline as more of the population decides to caryy concealed weapons.

Online Review

I think the spread was actually more like 15, 15, 5 and 5.

There were two officers in the front and two in the back. It is also important to remember that this happened in less than 4 seconds. Once an officer decides to shoot, he is shooting to kill. Once that decision has been made, it makes sense to keep shooting until the guy is dead.

In addition, one of the officers tripped, making the other officers think he had been hit. The alcove may also have caused some of the bullets to ricochet, making the officers think they were under fire.

My personal take on this is that Diallo is the victim of the our government over-reaching it’s powers. I understand why the individuals screwed up and reacted the way they did, but I do not understand the procedures that led to it.

If you believe that the officers could not tell the difference between a wallet and a gun, then you have to believe that Diallo may not have been able to see their badges.

If these 4 officers had taken the fall it would have let the system off the hook. There is something fundamentally wrong with the way our government approaches it’s citizens. From Waco to Diallo, people have died and the public has refused to take note that our government is getting out of hand.

6

Freedom:

Really? What I’ve read in the papers is that the cops were looking for a rapist, and when they saw Diallo, they thought he might be acting in the role of lookout. I missed the part where he matched any description they had.

In which case they should have been more, not less, in control of themselves and the situation than the cop who stopped me on Suitland Parkway.

Supposing Lott is right, that doesn’t say this type of killing is decreasing; rather, it justifies it based on the overall decrease of violence.

Nothing wrong with that argument, intellectually. Without reading Lott, though, my instinct is that, overall, danger is coming closer to me when my fellow ‘law-abiding citizens’ are too well-armed; I wasn’t worried about getting shot by a criminal in the first place, but I’m not keen on trusting my fellow citizen’s judgment with a gun in any number of situations. Used to be, all you had to worry about was somebody punching you out if they lost their temper with you.

Maybe my overall risk has dropped and my perceptions are off; maybe my perceptions are right, but other people’s risk has dropped more than mine has increased; I don’t know. But I’m dead serious: I’m far more worried, now, about getting shot by some generally law-abiding type than I was ever worried, in the '70s, '80s, or early '90s, about being shot by a criminal.

True.

People who are understood to lack power or influence will always be treated in a different manner from those who have it. But when the treatment of those on the outs gets this extreme, I agree that we’ve got something to worry about, whether it’s in NYC, LA, or Waco.

7

I wonder why none of the cops fired rubber bullets. Those things do an amazingly good job of downing a civilian without much permanent injury.

8

I’d hate to be the one that told the first pair of officers to use the rubber bullets and the second two to hold fire until they were sure the rubber bullets failed.

It just seem like there should be a way of doing just that, doesn’t it?

There was a program on A & E or Dsicovery that discussed all the non-lethal alternatives to bullets, maybe they are too risky, need too much training, aren’t reliable enough…

But I know from watching TV that when approached by the police I should not do anything they haven’t asked or told me to do.

Diallo probably didn’t have this All-American upbringing. Thought someone would give him a chance to produce his ID and ask what he has doing.

Is it better training? What’s the percentage that a guy to draw a gun in those circumstances and actually hit one of the police?

Too high.

9

He who has the gun makes the rules. If a cop, or a thief for that matter, approached me with a gun drawn, I’d put my hands up and talk loudly and very clearly. If he wants to kill me, then there’s little that I can do to stop him. But I’m going to try and give him as little reason to shoot me as possible. Your goal is to defuse the tension, not add to it.

An undercover cop (in Massachusetts, I believe) was shot down a month ago by his own co-workers b/c they didn’t recognize him in his plain clothes and he came onto the scene with his gun drawn. Afterward, the chief was weeping as he gave a news conference? Do you think they intended to kill one of their own?

Something’s wrong in River City. It’s a circular reference. Situations like the Diallo incident increases hostilities towards the police, and as a result the police are becoming paranoid and over-reactive.

10

Why? Why not shoot to disable first?

Maybe in the Diallo case, there was a justifiable shoot-to-kill decision based on the mistaken idea that Diallo had started the shooting (that mistaken idea resulting from the officer who tripped). But are you saying that as a general rule, all shots are intended to kill?

11

Mr. Diallo is dead because he didn’t do what the plainclothes police told him to do. What he did made two of them fear for their lives; in response they fired to kill him. The jury was charged that, if they found that fear reasonable under the circumstances, they had to acquit. The did and they did.

So much for the murder case. But that analysis doesn’t end the inquiry, because the REAL question is: why did four trained officers think a man reaching for and pulling out his wallet was about to shoot them? Why did two of the officers start shooting after the other two started shooting? And what, if anything, can be done to make sure no one ELSE ends up like Mr. Diallo for the same reason?

From what I have read, the main speculation focuses on the expectations of the officers. When RTFirefly is rooting around behind his seat for registration papers, the officer who stopped him isn’t expecting to be shot. Mind you, he isn’t being unvigillant (enough officers DO get shot on routine stops that they pay attention to you!), but he would be surprised if you pulled a gun.

In contrast, the officers who stopped Mr. Diallo were expecting trouble. They believed him to be involved in criminal activity. They were in a high-crime area. They probably were extremely nervous and hyper-reactive. They mis-interpreted a basic gesture that, frankly, might be one any person would engage in under the circumstances (offering police your identity).

Some are concerned that this expectation was reached, in part, because of Mr. Diallo’s race (i.e.: because he was black, the white officers assumed he was a criminal). Whether or not that actually played a part is to this day not clear; whether or not the officers would admit that it did is also uncertain (do YOU admit your flaws readily?).

Understanding what lead the officers to make an incorrect assumption is necessary if the NYC force is to take measures to prevent anyone else from suffering similar results.

12

I think it has something to do with the threshold of justifying shooting in the first place. I certainly wouldn’t want cops feeling free to put bullets in people’s legs to stop them.

Besides, you are assuming accuracy. These cops MISSED him with 54% of their shots. These guys are not in a movie, they can not just calmly put a bullet in someone and then hang out to see the effect. (assuming they even hit the target) How many cops do you want to sacrifice to this policy?

These guys were in a “life and death” situation. Well, at least they thought they were. They had so much adrenaline flowing through their system that things did not seem the same to them as they do to us the day after. This MAY explain why two of them fired so many shots.

For a civilian, I know that you are supposed to retreat if possible. You are only allowed to shoot if you don’t think you can retreat safely, or if your life is in imminent danger. If you are in your house, I don’t think you have to retreat. Civilians are told NEVER to fire warning shots or to disable. It is only a justifiable shooting if you thought your life was in danger and required you to take their life.

I THINK that cops are under the same system minus the retreat part. I will defer to anyone here who actually knows the rules. Maybe there is a cop or lawyer here who knows the specifics?
Regardless of these cops behavior, I think the system needs a major overhaul. We need to reign in our government. It is not in our best interests to have cops running around like para-military groups.

Cops need to be in uniform when stopping people. They need to stop kicking in doors at 4am like the gestapo wearing black ninja outfits with masks. They need to stop searching every car they want to.
Does anyone out there know if the taskforce that these guys were a part of was focused on drugs or gangs? If so, then add Diallo to the casualty list of innocents killed by our war on (some) drugs.

13

Not a hijack but a minor tangent:

In Connecticut right now, we have two events in interesting juxtaposition. A white cop in Hartford was cleared of any wrongdoing by a state prosecutor in the shooting of a 14 year old black boy. The kid ran past the cop in the dark and appeared to be reaching for his waist; i.e., a weapon. The cop thought he heard a gunshot and shot the kid in the back, killing him.

In Litchfield, Connecticut (this is where celebrities with country homes in Connecticut live) a white cop is on trial for murder. According to the prosecution, the cop had the suspect (a black guy with a rap sheet a mile long) under control–on the ground with his hands behind his back and the cop’s foot or knee in the small of his back–witnesses have already testified to this. The cop was approximately 12 inches taller and 100 lbs. heavier than the victim. Supposedly, the victim made a move for his waist; i.e., a weapon. The cop shot him point blank in the back. That trial has been underway for three or four days now and continues tomorrow.

On another note, when it was announced that the second cop would be charged with murder, other cops saw fit to “rally” at the courthouse in support of him. The rally also involved heckling and (I think) attempts to intimidate the prosecutor (which didn’t work). I certainly believe in the precept of innocent until proven guilty, but I think it’s just plain wrong for cops to openly attempt to intimidate prosecutors into not pursuing criminal charges against cops in appropriate cases. Does anyone seriously think that a PROSECUTOR wants to put a cop behind bars? I don’t . . .

14

DSYoung:

The flip side of this is that Diallo wasn’t expecting trouble. IIRC, he was just some guy who couldn’t afford a better neighborhood.

And while the cops ‘believed him to be involved in criminal activity,’ that wasn’t based on anything Diallo did; they believed that because they found him in a bad area where a crime had recently been committed.

So did he get shot because he couldn’t afford to live in my sort of neighborhood?

Keeves:

This is apparently true. The Washington Post did a story on this a little over two weeks ago (so I won’t be able to give you a Web cite, but I’ll dig it out of the recycle bin tonight). Once they start shooting, their assumption is they’re still in danger until he’s dead. I’m uncomfortable with this, too.

Lisa:

I completely agree with you in theory. But I would expect people having guns drawn on them, even by the cops, to be nervous enough so that their good intentions might go right out the window - unless this sort of thing is routine to them. The other night when I realized I couldn’t find my registration, I got flustered and did all the wrong things, just out of nervousness. Diallo might’ve been doing his best under the circumstances.

15

Well, I saw this coming the day I heard of Diallo’s shooting. All I can do is express my disdain and disgust. Debating won’t bring this young man back to his family and my heart goes out to them.

This life is a test. It is only a test. If it had been an actual life, you would have received further instructions on where to go and what to do.

16

FWIW, Firefly, my firearms training stressed two points:

  1. The weapon is always loaded, even when it isn’t, and
  2. One should never point a weapon at someone unless one is prepared (and expecting) to kill that person.

If I am in a situation where I feel I have to pull a gun, I am also in a situation where I am willing to kill. If I’m not prepared to kill, I don’t pull the weapon.

And if I pull the trigger, I’ll make sure to keep pulling it–if I’m going to try to kill someone, dammit, I’ll be sure of it.
'Course all above is my own opinion and firearm philosophy (and why I don’t own or carry a gun, BTW).
As always, your milage may, and undoubtedly will, vary.

-andros-

17

I don’t watch TV and I rarely read the newspaper, so in all honesty, I wasn’t aware this case existed. All the info on it I’ve gleaned from this board. Aside from the tragedy of the loss of life, does anyone find it a disconcerting action for these two reasons? First and foremost, in most cases a bullet or two is enough to kill a human. I think the excessive firing is indicative of some sort of severely unstable mentality among the enforcers. Secondly, aren’t officers trained to use a firearm? The hit percentage is pathetic. Maybe if they were better marksman they wouldn’t be so fearful in this kind of situation. Overall, I’m fairly disgusted with policing forces in general, but this “accident” ices the cake for me.

18

I have never understood the difference between police and military groups. If their job is to enfore the law and find the criminals, what’s the difference? (or would this be a good GQ?)

19

But the military’s job isn’t enforcing law or finding criminals (for the most part). Its job is to kill people.

–
TMR

20

I’m not too familiar with the case, but it seems to me that Diallo didn’t do anything that the cops couldn’t have reasonably expected him to do. So if they felt in danger of their lives because of what Diallo did, then the conclusion I draw is that they knowlingly placed themselves in a lifethreatening situation. If they didn’t feel that a four-to-one ratio was enough to safely approach him, why didn’t they call for backup? If they didn’t feel comfortable with Diallo reaching into his pocket, why didn’t they specifically tell him to keep his hands in full view? It seems to me that if a cop, through his own negligence, puts himself in a situation where he feels it necessary to kill someone out of self-defence, then the cop is guilty of manslaughter at the very least. And I agree that the system shares responsibility as well. This type of situation should have been anticipated.
If cops have the right to shoot someone just because that person just might shoot them, does this apply to everyone? If RTFirefly had been afraid that the cop would shoot him in response to his rooting around for registration, would RTFirefly have been justified in shooting the cop? Or is this a special right that only cops have?