41 SHOTS

Amadou Diallo is 22 years old and has just relocated from Guinea to the 1100 block of Wheeler Avenue in the South Bronx. It is 1999 and the drug trade in this poor working-class neighbourhood is bustling. Though dangerous, Wheeler Avenue is exactly the kind of place an immigrant in New York City is looking for—cheap and close to a subway. Minutes before midnight on February 3, 1999, Amadou Diallo perches himself on the steps outside his building and soaks up the night. It has likely been a long day for Diallo. He works as a peddler but a mild stutter and far from perfect English make selling videotapes on the sidewalk difficult. Furthermore, a good friend of Diallo’s has recently been mugged by a group of armed men. In this quiet moment to himself perhaps the short and unassuming man envisions himself overcoming the odds to find success in the big city. Then again, maybe he is simply contemplating what to pack for lunch tomorrow.

A group of four plainclothes police officers pull onto Wheeler Avenue in an unmarked car. They comprise a fragment of the NYPD’s Street Crime Unit and each carries a semiautomatic handgun. This unit is dedicated to patrolling certain crime “hot spots”. Amadou Diallo happens to be standing in one of those hot spots.

He’s out here alone? At midnight?  In this lousy neighbourhood? ALONE? A black guy? He’s got a gun; otherwise he wouldn’t be here. And he’s little, to boot. Where’s he getting the balls to stand out there in the middle of the night? He must have a gun.

The four large men approach Diallo. One calls out, “May we have a word?” Diallo pauses and then flees into the building’s vestibule. A chase ensues. Cornered in the vestibule, Diallo turns his body sideways and digs at something in his pocket. “Show me your hands!” The cops scream. Everything is dark but one officer sees Diallo grasping something black—like a gun. “GUN!” The officer yells. Diallo continues pulling on the object in his pocket and raises it in the direction of the policemen. All four cops begin frantically shooting, aiming for “center mass”. A total of 41 shot are fired. Amadou Diallo is killed. As the cement dust settles the men approach the body. Diallo’s arm is out and his right palm open. Where there should be a gun, there is…a wallet. A snap judgment gone fatally wrong. The four large men sit down on the steps, next to Diallo’s bullet-ridden body, and cry. Bruce Springsteen writes a song: