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Subject: U.S. Examining Killing of Man in Police Volley
Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 10:52:48 EST
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U.S. Examining Killing of Man in Police Volley

By ROBERT D. McFADDEN with KIT R. ROANE


 Federal officials joined a widening city investigation Friday into the
killing of an unarmed West African immigrant by four police officers who fired
41 shots in a ferocious barrage that remained officially unexplained even as
controversy over the case spread from City Hall to the streets of the Bronx. 

 The United States Attorney in Manhattan, Mary Jo White, said her office would
work closely with the Bronx District Attorney, Robert T. Johnson, in the
inquiry into the shooting early Thursday of 22-year-old Amadou Diallo by
officers who confronted him at the vestibule of his Bronx building. 

 While Ms. White offered no elaboration, legal experts said the early Federal
intervention was highly unusual, perhaps intended as public reassurance in an
explosive case already drawing comparisons to those of Abner Louima, the
Haitian immigrant tortured in a Brooklyn station house in 1997, and Anthony
Baez, who died in the Bronx after a struggle with Officer Francis X. Livoti in
1994. 

 Investigators were keeping an official silence, and the officers themselves
have not yet been questioned. There were few facts to go on in a case that
seemed to crystallize the apprehensions of New York's minority groups over the
aggressive police policies of Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani's administration. The
victim was black and the four officers involved are white. 

 But an unofficial account was provided in an interview by Stephen Worth, a
lawyer who was hired through the auspices of the Patrolmen's Benevolent
Association to represent the four officers, all members of the Bronx street
crimes unit, who were searching for a rapist when the fatal encounter
occurred. 

 Mr. Worth quoted the officers as saying they were driving along Wheeler
Avenue in an unmarked car when they first saw Mr. Diallo in the vestibule of
his building. He was acting suspiciously, they said, and they thought he
resembled the sketch of a rapist they were seeking. 

 The lawyer did not elaborate on the suspicious behavior, but another person
familiar with the officers' account -- all four gave roughly the same story --
said Mr. Diallo appeared to be fumbling with something as he entered the
vestibule. 

 "He is acting strange, he fits the rapist's description in a generic way,"
Mr. Worth said. The plainclothes officers got out of their car, he said,
approached Mr. Diallo and identified themselves. 

 "Despite repeated identifications and orders to this individual to do certain
things, he failed to comply," Mr. Worth said. He declined to say what the
orders were. 

 In addition to his refusal to comply, Mr. Diallo exhibited "aggressive
behavior," which Mr. Worth refused to define. "There may have been a language
problem in terms of his understanding their directions," Mr. Worth
acknowledged. Mr. Diallo's roommates said he spoke English well, but slowly
and with a stutter. 

 In any case, the officers drew their guns -- each had a 16-shot 9-millimeter
semiautomatic pistol -- and Mr. Diallo may have made some movement or gesture
they took to be threatening, Mr. Worth said. 

 The other person familiar with the officers' account quoted them as saying
Mr. Diallo, who was carrying only a wallet and a beeper, moved his hands and
arms in a way that made the officers think he was going for a gun. 

 Mr. Worth said the officers then opened fire because they thought he had a
gun. "The reason they are shooting him is they think he has the gun," he said.

 Asked about the large number of shots fired, Mr. Worth said: "The reason they
are given this kind of fire power is to neutralize what they perceive as a
threat. While it may seem to a layman to be excessive, it was the number
required before this man stopped. All 41 shots did not hit this individual." 

 An autopsy yesterday found that Mr. Diallo suffered 19 gunshot wounds: 1 to
the front of the chest, 5 to the left side, 1 to the left back, 1 to the right
arm and 11 in the legs. Internal injuries -- ruptures of the aorta, spinal
cord, lungs, liver, spleen, kidney and intestines -- caused his death, said
Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the Medical Examiner's office. 

 A day after the shooting, as the victim's body was taken to a Harlem funeral
home to be washed and wrapped to be sent home to Guinea, West Africa, for
burial, there were waves of protest and expressions of outrage by relatives
and friends of Mr. Diallo, civil rights advocates and human rights
organizations. 

 "We want justice," Kyle B. Watters, a lawyer for the victim's family, said
outside 1157 Wheeler Avenue, in the Soundview section, where Mr. Diallo was
slain. "Ultimately, we want to have these officers prosecuted and convicted
and spend the rest of their lives in jail." 

 Standing beside him, the victim's uncle, Mamadou Diallo, wept and said, "I'm
too sad to speak." But the Rev. Al Sharpton, called the killing "the worst
form of police brutality we have ever seen or heard of." 

 "This was not a police murder, this was a police slaughter," Mr. Sharpton
said. He called for a Federal inquiry and spoke of plans for a protest rally
tomorrow outside the victim's building. 

 Amnesty International U.S.A., in a statement, said the slaying "raises deeply
troubling questions about the use of excessive force and police brutality,"
and called for an independent commission to investigate. The Center for
Constitutional Rights urged the appointment of a special prosecutor. 

 Leaders of an organization called 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care
called for a Federal investigation, and contended that the street crimes unit,
to which the involved officers belong, was a danger to New Yorkers. 

 "That is the unit that's been given carte blanche to do as it will to the
people of the City of New York, especially the African-American community,"
Eric Adams, a city police lieutenant who heads the organization, said. While
the unit has existed for years, he said "it has taken a more aggressive stance
under this administration." 

 Meanwhile, Mayor Giuliani, who said he welcomed Federal involvement, appealed
for calm and patience until the facts were in. He said that the police
officers all had good records and that the victim, a street peddler who worked
on 14th Street in Manhattan, had no police record. 

 Standing with Police Commissioner Howard Safir at a City Hall news briefing,
the Mayor said, "It obviously troubles both the Police Commissioner and me
that 41 shots were fired. We don't know the reason for it at this point, but
that is what the investigation is all about." 

 Commissioner Safir said there were no eyewitnesses to the shooting, other
than the four officers. Asked why Mr. Diallo had been approached by the
police, he said, "There are some similarities between the individual and the
sketch we have," a reference to a rapist being sought, "but beyond that, what
was in their mind, whether they thought this was that individual, is unfair to
speculate at this time." 

 The officers -- Edward McMellon, 26, Sean Carroll, 35, Kenneth Boss, 27, and
Richard Murphy, 26, all members of a street crimes unit composed of some of
the city's most aggressive and decorated officers -- were on administrative
leave, and had not been questioned by investigators for their department or
the Bronx District Attorney's office. 

 Thus, no comment was the official response to the unanswered questions: why
an unarmed man with no police record was shot at all, and why so many times. 

 Some law enforcement officials said the phenomenon of several officers'
firing many shots is sometimes called contagious shooting. In the heat of what
one officer believes is a deadly confrontation, the first shots may be
justified, but others join in as a kind of contagion. 

 Mr. Diallo was, by all accounts, a pious Muslim who had never been in trouble
with the law. 

 James Savage, president of the P.B.A., called the shooting a "terrible
tragedy." 

 He added, "We do not have enough of the facts yet to be able to comment in
substance about how it occurred." He said the officers had not invoked the
48-hour rule, an often misunderstood contract provision that allows those
facing departmental charges two business days before talking to investigators.
Departmental charges usually are not pursued until after criminal charges are
adjudicated. 

 Regarding criminal charges, officers, like other citizens, may invoke
constitutional rights against self-incrimination. The four officers in this
case have not been questioned by police investigators at the behest of the
Bronx District Attorney, who appeared to be proceeding cautiously to avoid
legal errors. 

 The involvement by the United States Attorney does not mean that Federal
officials will take over the investigation, officials said. Rather, Federal
officials will consider possible violations of Mr. Diallo's civil rights,
while the District Attorney examines criminal charges. 

 Typically, the Federal Government does not enter a case until later, often
only after state prosecutors fail to win a conviction. That is what happened
in the case of Officer Livoti, who was acquitted of criminally negligent
homicide in 1996, but was convicted last year by Ms. White's office of
violating the civil rights of Mr. Baez by killing him with a choke hold banned
by the police.