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Actualité courante
Mort de Amadou Diallo à New York City

Amy Waldman
4 Officers in the Diallo Shooting Plead Not Guilty to Murder Count

New York Times — April 1, 1999

Four New York City police officers were arraigned on charges of second-degree murder and suspended from the police force Wednesday in the shooting death of Amadou Diallo, marking a new stage in a case that has riveted, and riven, the city for weeks.

With security so heavy for the arraignment that the Bronx County Building was shut down, and with hundreds of demonstrators on both sides of the case massing and chanting outside, the officers uttered their first public statements about Diallo's death. Asked how they pleaded, Officers Sean Carroll, Edward McMellon, Richard Murphy and Kenneth Boss each emphatically replied, « Not guilty. »

The arraignment judge, John P. Collins of State Supreme Court, rejected a request by the Bronx District Attorney to put the officers in custody, and set bail at $100,000 each. After the officers posted bail, they emerged from the courthouse and were greeted with cries of «Murderers » from demonstrators and chants of « We Support You » from fellow officers.

Each officer faces two counts of second-degree murder. They fired a total of 41 bullets at Diallo, hitting him with 19, as he stood in the vestibule of his apartment building at 1157 Wheeler Avenue in the Soundview section early on the morning of Feb. 4. One count charges that the officers intended to kill Diallo, while the other charges that they exhibited a depraved indifference to human life. Each count is punishable by a maximum of 25 years to life in prison.

The officers also face one count of reckless endangerment in the first degree, based on the charge that the large number of shots endangered people inside Diallo's building. That count is punishable by a maximum of six years in prison.

It has been nearly two months since Diallo's killing, and in the intervening weeks his death has altered both police tactics and the city's politics in fundamental ways. It has spawned several Federal investigations into Police Department practices, put Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and Police Commissioner Howard Safir on the defensive, and aroused mass protests and then a wave of civil disobedience outside Police Headquarters in lower Manhattan. «Forty-one bullets » and «No justice, no peace » have become the rallying cries of a mass movement of sorts, led by the Rev. Al Sharpton.

But for all the vocalness of the protesters, the man overseeing the investigation, the Bronx District Attorney, Robert T. Johnson, remained silent until yesterday, when he personally handled the arraignment and then held a news conference about the case. In doing so, he shed the image of the cautious and neutral investigator for that of a prosecutor firmly on the side of the Diallo family, whom he met with for about half an hour before the arraignment.

It was only the second time in his 10 years as District Attorney that he appeared personally at an arraignment, the other case being the arson fire at the Happy Land Social Club, which killed 87 people in 1990.

During the sometimes contentious arraignment, and in comments afterward, defense lawyers accused Johnson of playing to the political winds. Stephen Worth, called his client, McMellon, a «political prisoner. »

Johnson implicitly criticized the officers for failing to present their version of events during a three-week inquiry by a Bronx grand jury, calling their silence « one of the oddities » of the case. Because the officers had not offered any justification for the shooting, he said, the court should treat them « like any other individuals who rolled up to a building and fired 41 shots » at someone.

That assertion prompted outrage from the officers' lawyers.

« Certainly police officers, being proposed defendants, have the same rights as anybody else and do not have to testify to the grand jury, » said Officer Carroll's lawyer, Marvyn M. Kornberg. He added that Johnson's suggestion that their silence was a reason to put them in custody « reprehensible. »

With the indictments unsealed, more details about the case began to emerge yesterday.

Worth said the officers continued shooting because Diallo continued to stand upright as the 19 bullets hit him. « Diallo did not fall at any point during the incident and that's why the number of shots that were fired were fired, » Worth said.

But the Diallo family's lawyers attacked that assertion as « absurd, » saying that it was contradicted by an autopsy done by their own pathologist, Dr. Cyril H. Wecht, the coroner for Allegheny County in Pennsylvania. That report suggests that Diallo was knocked down and likely paralyzed by some of the earliest bullets that hit him, said one of the lawyers, Peter Neufeld. Two of the first shots fired cut Diallo's spine and « he was brought down to the ground immediately, » Neufeld said.

The Medical Examiner's office has refused to discuss its official autopsy, although it has released copies of the report to several people involved in the case.

People who have reviewed the report said it states that one of the bullets struck Diallo squarely in the chest, rupturing his aorta and his spine. A second bullet also cut into and partially severed his spine.

The report does not give a sequence for the shots fired or express any opinion about whether the shots paralyzed him, said the people who have seen the report. But it does note that great volumes of blood were found in Diallo's chest cavity, evidently from the chest wounds. Experts said that could be evidence that the shots that struck his torso were fired early in the sequence when his blood pressure was still high.

Sharpton, who has led weeks of protests against the Diallo shooting and has served as an adviser to the family, said yesterday that Diallo had been shot through the bottom of his feet, but the Medical Examiner's report states only that Diallo was shot three times in the right foot. One shot went through the front of his right third toe and two others struck between the ankle and the sole, said those who had seen the report.

Another bullet entered Diallo's back, about six inches above the belt line, and exited on the right side of his torso.

Defense lawyers, who have not seen either of the autopsy reports, strongly disputed the conclusions of the Diallo family lawyers. « How does anyone tell it's one of the earlier shots? » Worth asked. « When I was a prosecutor I never heard of a medical examiner who could say with any certainty the sequence of shots. »

At the officer's arraignment yesterday, the courtroom was split by race and allegiance. On one side sat the Diallos, their relatives and their supporters, including Sharpton, all of whom were black or Hispanic. On the other sat representatives of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association and friends and relatives of the officers. With a few exceptions, all of them were white. Among those present to register their support for the defendants was Inspector Bruce H. Smolka, the commanding officer of the Street Crime Unit, the police squad to which the four officers were assigned and that critics say has unfairly targeted members of minority groups in its mission to search suspects for guns.

After the officers entered their pleas, Justice Collins oversaw the selection of the judge who will handle the case through its conclusion, and, if the officers waive their right to a jury trial, decide their fate. Patricia Anne Williams, an acting Supreme Court justice, was chosen when her name was picked at random from a wheel containing the names of 12 judges.

The arraignment and the subsequent comments by the officers' lawyers offered a glimpse of the defense they will provide, and of possible conflicts between the scenarios that both sides will present.