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Mort de Amadou Diallo à New York City

141 Arrested in Protest of Police Killing of Unarmed Man

New York Times — March 23, 1999

As Police Commissioner Howard Safir came under mounting criticism, 141 people, including State Comptroller H. Carl McCall, were arrested Monday in the largest act of civil disobedience yet protesting the police shooting of Amadou Diallo.

The protest was held just after Commissioner Safir was forced to defend his officers at a City Council hearing into the Police Department's Street Crime Unit. Four officers from that unit fired a total of 41 shots at Diallo, an unarmed West African immigrant, killing him in the vestibule of his Bronx apartment building on Feb. 4.

Before the hearing, Safir's aides said that he might not testify at the City Council hearing because of a scheduling conflict. But after being photographed at the Oscars ceremony in Los Angeles on Sunday night, the Commissioner flew back to New York to attend the hearing at City Hall.

The size of Monday's protest – several hundred marched outside Police Headquarters in lower Manhattan, and the number of arrests was the highest yet in protests in the case – indicated that public anger over Diallo's shooting showed no signs of abating nearly seven weeks after the episode.

Singing « We Shall Overcome, » McCall, the highest-ranking black elected official in the state, blocked the entrance to Police Headquarters and was arrested along with Earl G. Graves, the publisher of Black Enterprise magazine; Ed Lewis, the publisher of Essence magazine; the comedian Dick Gregory, and dozens of lawyers and several City Council members fresh from their hearing on the Police Department.

All were handcuffed, following police guidelines, as Representative Charles B. Rangel of Harlem and former Mayor David N. Dinkins were last week.

But the main political drama yesterday was at the City Council hearing, where Council members had been eagerly awaiting a chance to question Safir, only to be rebuffed by his office over the last few days. Police officials refused to say whether Safir's scheduling conflict with the Council hearing involved the Oscars, but the photos of the Commissioner in Los Angeles in black tie proved embarrassing, given what was going on back home.

« This was completely private, » Marilyn Mode, a police spokeswoman, said of the Commissioner's trip. « This was his weekend off. »

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani said that he had no problem with Safir's trip to the Academy Awards ceremony. « He has every right to some degree of relaxation, like every other human being, » the Mayor said yesterday after returning from a speaking engagement in Arizona.

But the Bronx Borough President, Fernando Ferrer – who was arrested in yesterday's protest and spent about six hours at the Seventh Precinct station house before being released – said that he thought the out-of-town trip sent the wrong message.

« There was a Police Commissioner at the Oscars last night. There was a Mayor golfing in Arizona, » he said. « They both have been in denial about the pain this is causing the city. They both seem not to get it, not to understand that we have submitted ourselves voluntarily for arrest not for fun, but to send a message. »

In addition to attending the Oscars, Safir went to a party held by Tina Brown, the former New Yorker editor, for her new magazine, called Talk. Andrew Stengel, a spokesman for Miramax Films, which owns the magazine, said that Safir had been invited to the party by Ron Galotti, the magazine's publisher, who is a close friend of the Commissioner.

It was not clear whether Safir cut his trip short to return for the meeting.

In defending Safir, the Mayor also addressed suggestions over the weekend by Gov. George E. Pataki that Giuliani has not responded well to criticism over the Diallo case.

« I think we've done everything we can to try to deal with this in a sensitive and emotional and rational way, » Giuliani said, pointing to a series of efforts ranging from his attempts to help the Diallo family to new sensitivity training now given to officers of the Street Crime Unit and the drive to attract more city residents to the Police Department.

« We're doing everything we can to try to deal with the pain and suffering that this causes – because there's no question it causes a great deal of pain and suffering, » said the Mayor, who did not mention Governor Pataki by name.

Before speaking to a class at Pace University, former Police Commissioner William J. Bratton said that he agreed with the Rev. Al Sharpton that Mayor Giuliani does not grasp the depth of feeling in black and Hispanic neighborhoods about police misconduct.

« Reverend Sharpton has clearly indicated that he doesn't believe the Mayor fully understands the feeling of the minority community about this issue, » Bratton said. « I share that opinion. The Mayor is going to have to understand that these demonstrations are reflections of a deep-rooted feeling, particularly in the minority community, that something is not working the way it should as it relates to police and community relations. »

Safir, too, adopted a conciliatory tone in his opening remarks to the City Council. « There's been a lot of rhetoric around the city, » he said, « and I think the kind of dialogue we're having here today is the kind of dialogue that's really needed to bring the kind of healing to the city that reasonable people need to talk about. »

The hearing was called to examine the Street Crime Unit, which has come under growing scrutiny since the shooting of Diallo. The unit, which is assigned to high crime areas and is charged with taking illegal guns off the streets, is already the subject of a Federal civil rights investigation into whether its officers stop and search people without probable cause in their quest to make gun arrests.

At the hearing Safir defended the unit. "My view is, and I believe that the facts and figures will bear it out, is that this unit is one of the prime reasons for the reduction of violent crime in the city," he said, promising to furnish the Council with data next month.

But Councilman Sheldon S. Leffler, the chairman of the council's public safety committee, said that he had serious concerns about the unit. He noted that in more than 80 percent of instances when the unit has stopped and frisked someone, no arrest resulted, and that roughly half of the unit's gun arrests are eventually thrown out of court « It would seem to me that there's good reason to think you're engaged in a fishing expedition and a random approach, » Leffler said.

Safir vigorously denied that charge.

The hearing grew testy when Safir listed a number of black leaders who he has worked with, mentioning Dennis Walcott, the president of the Urban League, Sadique Wai of the United African Congress and Roy Innis of the Congress for Racial Equality, who has often sided with Republican causes.

Annette M. Robinson, a City Councilwoman from Brooklyn, slammed her hand down on the table and shouted, « That's an insult!»

Ms. Robinson went on to join the protesters being arrested outside Police Headquarters.

One person notice ably absent from the protest was former Mayor Edward I. Koch, who had planned to get himself arrested but was instead hospitalized yesterday morning with low blood pressure. In contrast to earlier protests, those in recent days have drawn more moderate political figures, like McCall.

« I am willing to go to jail because I think it is appropriate, » McCall said before his arrest. « I think I have a moral obligation to make this statement today in the hope that it will bring about reconciliation and healing, which is so badly needed in this city. »

The politicians were joined by dozens of lawyers – some in Legal Aid Society caps, others in pinstriped suits and at least one wearing a bow tie – who noisily decried the shooting before they, too, were arrested.

Ronald L. Kuby, a Manhattan trial and civil rights lawyer, led the lawyers in what has now become a familiar chant in lower Manhattan.

« What do we want? » Kuby asked.
« Justice! » his fellow lawyers chanted.
« When do we want it? » Kuby asked.
« Now! » they replied.

Minutes later, police officers arrested the lawyers, affixing plastic flex-cuffs to them and taking them by van to police station houses for processing.

Many of the protesters were not released until six hours later, and police officials blamed the delays on problems with a computer that determines whether those arrested have outstanding warrants against them.