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Mort de Amadou Diallo à New York City

Bob Herbert
A Brewing Storm

New York Times — February 11, 1999

The woman stood outside the tiny vestibule on Wheeler Avenue in the Bronx where Amadou Diallo had been killed in an astonishing barrage of gunfire unleashed by four undercover cops. A cold wind was blowing down the quiet street. Candles flickered on the floor of the unlocked vestibule. Flowers had also been placed on the floor. The woman made the sign of the cross and then wiped tears from her face. But she couldn't stop crying.

I was standing a few feet away with a notebook and a pen. The woman turned to me, still wiping her eyes, and said, "For the first time in my life I feel hatred."

The next day, at a rally in Foley Square in lower Manhattan, a brokerage house employee named Gordon Andrews said: "This [expletive] has got to stop. They are killing us and nobody is hearing us."

A lawyer from Brooklyn who stood on the steps of the State Supreme Court Building to watch the rally told me: "There's a storm brewing, and it's a big one. People are fed up. I'm fed up."

I don't know if Mayor Rudolph Giuliani realizes it, but there are limits to the amount of abuse that black New Yorkers will accept from violent and racist police officers. And those limits are fast approaching.

Black New Yorkers are in a fury over the cold-blooded killing of Mr. Diallo. His death is seen by most blacks as simply the latest tragic manifestation of the ruthless and humiliating treatment of ethnic minorities that is part of the daily routine of so many cops in this city.

Apologists for the Police Department can try to sugar-coat it if they like. Yes, it's true that crime has dropped precipitously. Yes, it's true that most cops are solid citizens. But it is also true that there is a frightening number of violent, racist, sadistic and in some cases homicidal police officers who spend much of their time terrorizing people. And that behavior is widely seen by black New Yorkers as being tolerated if not condoned by Mayor Giuliani.

How gruesome has the situation become? Some parents and civic leaders are teaching black and Hispanic children to quickly display their hands during any encounter with the police, like little criminals. This is to show that the youngsters are not armed and therefore should not be blown into eternity at age 10 or 15 or 20 by a trigger-happy stranger in a blue uniform.

There has been a long epidemic of outrages -- killings, the torturing of Abner Louima, the invasions by rampaging cops of the apartments of innocent families, the routine beating and harassment of young men and boys, the curses and the racial slurs, the arrests on phony charges of individuals who dare to object to abusive treatment, and more.

Last summer the Mayor ordered an entire section of Harlem locked down because he objected to a rally that was being held.

There is a widespread feeling among black New Yorkers that they are living in a police state, and that many of the cops are a threat to the very lives of their children. The anger and resentment over this is growing by the day. And increasingly the resentment is being directed not just toward the police and the Mayor but toward white New Yorkers in general, who are not subjected to the same levels of brutality and harassment.

"I am scared to death," said a former city official, who asked not to be identified, "that this division between blacks and whites, this schism, is growing so large that it can't be repaired. African-Americans perceive that the white community largely condones Rudy's policies as they relate to the blacks and the police. And therefore the whites are as much to blame as Rudy and the police."

I don't believe that most white New Yorkers condone police misconduct, but there have not been nearly enough white voices raised against the atrocities committed by the police. This unfortunate silence is, indeed, a form of encouragement.

The cops who killed Amadou Diallo have had several days now to craft their story. The Mayor and the Police Commissioner are doing their public-relations thing, offering condolences, ordering meaningless training, waiting for the press to turn its attention elsewhere.

Meanwhile, black New Yorkers are seething.