Talk:Killing of Amadou Diallo

Article statements?

Since the only people who know what happened in the hallway shooting are either a)dead or b)have potential reason to lie shouldn't some of the statements in this article be a little more qualified? I'm thinking of the "did not threaten the officer's in any way". Since the officer's defence was that they explicitly felt threatened this implies that they were lying. Also when it states that the fallen officer "appeared to be shot" that buys into the officer's story about what happened. I also have a chronological question about the fallen officer. My understanding was that he fell either before or right as they began firing. Some of the claims I remember implied that the fall seemed to confirm their impression that Diallo was armed. ok

I think all of this is moot, since no weapon was ever found at the scene. I'm sure even if this excessive use of force was neccessitated by a threat, the first thing they did would have been to point out the firearm the suspect had. V1rtue 21:41, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

This article is very biased against the NYPD. The authors have no knowledge of police procedure and in fact sound more like the typical anti-NYPD rants of police haters like Al Sharpton. The NYPD protects people. If Diallo was not complying with the officers instructions that is a red flag to officers and makes them more alert. I am not going to edit this article, but I will leave it to you all to make it fair and balanced, not biased towards the dead perp. Spring3100 01:13, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

The fact that you called a man never charged with a crime nor suspected of one outside of this incident a "perp" completely invalidates your entire argument. And the argument that the "NYPD protects people" is just as invalid as it is, in and of itself, an opinion and therefore biased. Beyond that, whether he was "complying" or not is almost a moot point considering that it could be argued that the officers did not comply with the Fourth Amendment, protecting against unreasonable search and seizure. Either way, last I checked not complying with an officer is not a crime punishable by death. And besides, he wasn't "not complying" he was misunderstanding. There is a difference. NinedenLtD 21:45, 12 January 2006.

Sorry, but if i misunderstand four individuals wearing badges and yelling "stop, this is NYPD" and I then run away and go digging for something in my jacket -- i should very well be prepared to be shot. There is such a thing of taking responsibility for one's actions -- and in this case this individual took the ultimate responsibility. It sucks, but trying to play this boring blame game is ridiculous. That tax papers gave his family $3,000,000 is just ludicrous. It is all racial bias and extreme political correctness out of control. Your statement "not complying with an officer is not a crime punishable by death" is not only ridiculous, but moronic. Not complying with an officer is a SURE WAY to get killed. You become a cop in a major city and come back here in a year and respond to that -- if you have the balls.

They were NOT wearing badges. They were in plain clothes. If they DISPLAYED their badges from a distance, how could he be expected to see that they were genuine? If they displayed them from close-up, they could have taken him down manually. Even if they suspected, why did they fire 41 bullets? Their story was that the guns had a hair-trigger (a lie) and that the bullets could hit him without having any apparent effect (an absurd lie). David Kessler.

Since Diallo is, unfortunately, not alive to tell us what he was thinking, it is a bit of an assumption to assume he was misunderstanding. Perhaps he was just afraid of the police as plenty of people are, especially those who are of so called minority races, whether or not this fear is justified. It's a bit pretentious to assume you know what he was thinking or why he reacted the way he did.

^Even if Diallo didn't comply with the officers' instructions 41 rounds is a little much... --S0ulbythepound 04:26, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Too much? Based on what? Should they have fired 1? 2? 10? This isn't hollywood, one hit or 10 won't instantly stop a person. Besides, there were four officers. And their aim was pretty bad - only 19 hits from a few feet away. --Mmx1 04:44, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Looking at the profile of some guys can be really interesting in behalf of understanding their opinions. The action taken by the cops shows no respect for human life whatsoever. Of course this isn't hollywood (as some people say) were a guy can withstand several shots. With at least one you can kill a guy. A couple of shots to the air, or even to his legs could have been enough. Their intention was not to "stop him instantly" but to kill him right away. By the way, some people understand police duty wrong. They are no jurors to decide this matters. Could this guy (if the police officers are not lying) run because he was into something ilegal? Indeed. But again, even if he was the rapist they were looking for, they are not allowed to use this excesive force. Deciding if the guy lives or dies is not their job. My english sucks.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Necky (talk • contribs).

Police in the United States (or NYC, at the very least) should not ever shoot at a suspect's legs. Pretty much all police officers are trained to fire at center mass, should they ever need to fire their weapon. (Whether or not any shots were justified is a different question.) Ford MF 04:51, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Cultural references

This section is huge, and dwarfs the rest of the article, unreasonably and unnecessarily. It needs to be trimmed or streamlined so it's more useful to readers than a mammoth list of everyone who's ever mentioned Diallo's name in a song ever. If no one else is interested in doing it, I guess I'll put it on my to-do list. Ford MF 23:08, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

When the author refers to Mr. Diallo as an "immigrant," he is not giving you the "entire" story. While Mr. Diallo may have had authorization to work in the United States, he had in fact gotten his residency by filing a fraudulent asylum application with the US Department of Justice. Mr. Diallo was in this country because he lied under oath on numerous occasions as to his nationality and regarding the death of his parents (they recovered 3-million dollars as compensation for their loss) at the hands of officals in Mauritania. Mr. Diallo was in fact Sengalese, and not from Mauritania.

While these facts do not alter the culpability of the NYPD, such an ommision could be evidence of the author's bias. What this "West African Immigrant" was doing in this country and how he got here, is relevant background information. This is the reason his fraudulent asylum application was admitted as evidence at the criminal trial. Amadou Diallo: West African immigrant, or a fraudulent "huckster?" Lets let the readers decide, not the author.

1) Please sign your comments using four tildes (~~~~).

2) Scoundrel or saint, he's just as dead. Ford MF 01:17, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

• note from concerned reader*....will the author of this page get his skinhead neonazi facts straight? Amadou was born in Liberia and the 'object' he was bringing out of his pants was a wallet. Clearly to show his ID. I am white and after reading actual court transcripts can still see that this is clearly a racially motivated murder. Because of authors such as this, racism will unfortunately never end.

The song "Diallo" recorded by Wyclef Jean on his ECLEFTIC tour CD allows for more knowledge on this subject. It tells the story from the point of view from the people. It was a devastation to the morale of the African American community, and as they were pushed aside before during the trials, they must now be heard. Change is only as far a reach as we make it. Prejudice against other humans only makes our struggle a longer and more difficult. Thanks to those police officers on that day of Amadou Diallo's death, we have taken a giant step back from getting closer as the human race.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.235.0.157 (talk • contribs) December 20, 2006.

Was the evidence really admitted at his trial? It seems unduly prejudicial and completely irrelevant. Whether or not he had commited a crime and/or was not entitled to live in the US, this didn't affect his civil rights with regards to the charges. Also, the officers were evidently not aware of these details and so it couldn't have affected their response/fears. He wasn't on trial and didn't offer any evidence after all. Therefore, it was completely irrelevant and if it were really allowed in the trial, this perhaps just shows how screwed up the American judicial system is. No wonder there were/are so many complaints. In terms on this article, I agree the background info probably should be mentioned Nil Einne 17:50, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

I think this is a fair point. futurebird 23:17, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

tapestry by William Wiley

I don't understand this part. Wiley almost certainly was long dead before this incident. What is this supposed to mean? AaronWL 01:25, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

It's not the William Wiley linked to (though I'm about to fix that) it's a different William Wiley. At least, there is a different William Wiley, born in 1937, who makes tapestries. Gnfnrf 05:07, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

41 shots merge

I have suggested that the article 41 shots be merged into this article, as it consists of little more than token summary and a list of artists who have used the phrase. It would work much better if that content were merged into this article in the "cultural references" section, and the original article redirected here.--TexasDex 19:11, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I totally agree. The fluffiness of the 41 shots article has irritated me for a long time. Ford MF 03:57, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. The cultural references section in this article is in everpresent danger of ballooning into a giant discussion of each and every artist who says anything at all about the shooting, dwarfing any encyclopedic coverage of the person or incident itself. There is nothing in the 41 shots article that isn't already in this article except for one sentence about Bruce Springsteen. And if that sentence goes in, then everyone adds a sentence about their favorite artist. If you don't like the 41 shots article, I'd support deletion. Gnfnrf 03:26, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Ah, okay. Actually that does sound reasonable to me. I just kinda figured merge would be the 'soft delete' option, as most of that crap would vanish anyway. Ford MF 06:00, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Who is Chris Harman?

I'm a little confused why Amadou Diallo is referred to as Chris Harman in the article? I have never heard of him being called Chris Harman. Should his name be changed in the entries for the article?

Anthony22 00:11, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Our Chris Harman is "the editor of International Socialism, a former editor of Socialist Worker and a member of the Central Committee of the Socialist Workers Party." It seems regular vandalism at first sight, but you never know. Good that you brought it up at the talk page. gidonb 00:15, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

What happened?

I don't know anything about this historical incident, and this Wikipedia article is woefully lacking in enlightening information. There are mentions of cultural references and protests, but nothing in this article says WHAT actually happened. Can we get an incident report or something? Anything is better than "a person was shot while unarmed, and then thousands of people protested it was racially motivated" - what was going on when he was shot? What triggered the police to begin shooting? int3gr4te 17:14, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

OK, now I think I understand what happened. It looks like everything before the 'aftermath' section is missing - don't know why. Anchoress 06:27, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree, so I added a 'context' template

I agree, in particular I think the opening paragraph of the main 'Aftermath' section is very confusing. I don't know if an incident report would help, but a more complete and contextualised narrative certainly would. Anchoress 06:23, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Fixed

'What happened' was vandals replaced the Events surrounding his death section in the article with "he is gay" vandalism. The next editors, instead of reverting it, just deleted the vandalism and failed to restore the content. I have fixed this by copying content from a revision dated April 12 [1].--TexasDex 12:36, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Adding a brief biography section

After seeing "Death of two sons", and having an interest in the Futu Djallon, thought I'd add a brief, uncontroversial bio section. I went looking for where he was born, burried, etc, and this article didn't have it. T L Miles 15:49, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Officers not "exonerated"

The officers were found "not guilty" by a jury of the criminal charges they faced. That means that the prosecutor did not prove beyond a reasonable doubtthat they were guilty of those criminal charges. This does not mean that the jurors believed that the officers were innocent, only that it was possible that they were innocent. A not guilty verdict definitely does not mean that they were "exonerated of any wrongdoing." 67.170.195.13 (talk) 23:16, 8 January 2009 (UTC)