SENT February 13, 2000 (#1042)
>
> Four Cops on Trial in Albany, New York
>
> Justice for Amadou Diallo!
>
> By Margot Harry
>
> It is a year since Amadou Diallo was gunned down by four New
> York City police officers. The trial of the four cops
> accused of killing him is now unfolding in Albany, in
> upstate New York.
>
> Amadou Diallo, a young immigrant from Africa, was standing
> in the vestibule of the building where he lived in the Bronx
> when four white plainclothes cops arrived. Amadou never had
> a chance. The cops--members of the "elite" Street Crimes
> Unit--didn't identify themselves. They just started
> shooting, firing 41 shots that pinned Amadou to the wall
> before his lifeless body slumped to the ground. Amadou was
> hit 19 times. Bullets struck the bottom of his feet--because
> the cops kept firing even after he was on the floor.
>
> At Amadou's funeral, mourners carried a plain wooden box
> bound for Africa. Handwritten across the wood was a simple
> inscription: "Amadou Diallo." How could his family or
> friends have imagined that Amadou would end up returning to
> his homeland like this? How many others like Amadou have
> been murdered by enforcers of this white supremacist system?
> Will there be justice for Amadou?
>
> The system made a move to deny that justice by transferring
> the trial to Albany. The decision was made by five white
> judges--one of whom is a crony of the lawyer for one of the
> killer cops.
>
> Consider that the trial was moved out of the Bronx just
> before it was to begin--to a county in upstate New York
> where 86 percent of the people are white and only 9 percent
> are Black. This move stinks of an attempted fix -- a la the
> Rodney King case, when the 1992 trial of the LAPD cops who
> beat King was moved to the pro-police suburb of Simi Valley.
>
> Consider that the judge assigned to hear the case was the
> lawyer for an Albany cop involved in the 1984 shooting of
> Jessie Davis, a mentally ill Black man. No charges were ever
> filed against the cops for killing Davis.
>
> Consider that the trial was moved out of the city that has
> been promoted by the power structure as a major model for
> policing America's urban centers. Whatever the outcome of
> this case, the ruling class wants to limit damage to Mayor
> Giuliani's police-state apparatus.
>
> Consider that those prosecuting the cops are from the Bronx
> District Attorney's office. What do these prosecutors do
> every day? They work hand-in-hand with police. The cops
> beat, brutalize and arrest people, especially Black and
> Latino people. Then the prosecutors try, convict and
> imprison the victims.
>
> The judges who moved the case to Albany said that the cops
> could not get a "fair trial" in the Bronx or anywhere in New
> York City. As Carl Dix, RCP national spokesperson and member
> of the national coordinating committee of the October 22
> Coalition to Stop Brutality, said, "What does it mean that
> the authorities fear allowing the people of these
> neighborhoods the chance to judge these cops? If their claim
> that the police `serve and protect' is true, what are they
> afraid of? Perhaps their fear reveals the reality of their
> policing mission--that they are really like an occupying
> army that brutalizes and murders people and are afraid of
> being judged in the communities they patrol?"
>
> Jan. 31 in Albany
>
> On Jan. 31, the first day of jury selection, 250 people
> rallied outside the courthouse in Albany to demand justice.
> A committee for justice in Albany has linked up with
> anti-police brutality forces in NYC. Rev. Al Sharpton's
> National Action Network and others organized busloads of
> people from New York City. Amadou's parents, Kadiatou Diallo
> and Saikou Amad Diallo, were there to condemn police
> brutality and call for justice for their son and all
> victims. Standing by them were two other parents of victims
> killed by police: Iris Baez, whose son Anthony was choked to
> death by a cop, and Doris Boskey, mother of Gidone Busch, a
> Jewish man shot to death by cops last August.
>
> Speakers at the rally included Ron Daniels from Center for
> Constitutional Rights, which has a filed a lawsuit against
> the Street Crimes Unit; Richie Perez from the National
> Congress for Puerto Rican Rights and People's Justice 2000;
> and Carl Dix. The Oct. 22 Coalition brought the Stolen Lives
> Project, documenting the names of over 2000 victims of
> police murder and exposing how Amadou's murder is part of a
> nationwide epidemic. People's Justice 2000 is organizing
> people to be present in the courtroom throughout the trial.
> A contingent from several unions as well as several Black
> and Puerto Rican elected officials also attended the rally.
>
> Lumumba--a retired postal worker from Harlem and a member of
> the NY Oct. 22 Coalition and the NY Coalition Against the
> Death Penalty--was glad to see all the different people at
> the rally. But he wanted to see more youth. He said youth
> need to confront what they are up against--to be out in the
> streets in force, fighting for their freedom. Lumumba told
> the RW that the Black churches are "trying to send the
> children to heaven when they need to send them into the
> streets to get knowledge."
>
> Jail Amadou's Murderers!
>
> The cops do not dispute that they shot and killed Amadou
> Diallo. But they claim they did not commit murder. Their
> arguments expose how the police in general look at the
> people--as an enemy force. It's the outlook of an occupying
> force toward those they occupy.
>
> The killer cops insist that they were acting legally and
> within official policy when they stopped Amadou. They claim
> that he refused to comply with their orders. They say they
> thought Amadou was reaching for a gun and, fearing that
> their lives were in danger, they had to shoot. Under the
> rule of this system, they don't have to prove there was any
> actual danger to themselves--they just have to show that
> there was reason to make them think they were in danger.
> They are going to argue in court that the vestibule was dark
> and they couldn't tell the difference between Amadou's
> wallet and a gun. They don't address the obvious question:
> If the hall was too dark to see, why shoot at all?
>
> These cops who so brutally stole Amadou's life are now
> whining that they are suffering because they have to live
> with the shooting and its aftermath. Their lawyers are
> asking jurors to put themselves in the cops' shoes and look
> at Amadou through the eyes of the police. Through these
> cops' eyes, everyone in the oppressed communities of the
> Bronx is a potential criminal.
>
> The cops who murdered Amadou belonged to the Street Crimes
> Unit (SCU), an innovation under the "stop-them-all" policy
> of Giuliani and his police commissioner Safir. SCU cops have
> stopped tens of thousands of people, most of them Black or
> Latino, for no reason other than the color of their skin.
> This gestapo treatment is justified on the basis of
> "stopping crime." But most of the people stopped by SCU cops
> were never charged with a crime. And a high percentage of
> people who do get arrested by the SCU have their cases
> thrown out of court.
>
> On February 4, exactly a year from the day Amadou Diallo was
> killed, 500 people gathered at the site of his execution.
> Neighbors say that nothing has changed--police continue to
> stop and search people at will. The trial of Amadou's
> murderers has been moved far away. But the reality of police
> brutality continues.
>
> The massive protests after the murder of Amadou forced the
> indictments of the cops. If the people are to win justice in
> this case and see Amadou's murderers go to jail, there must
> be determined resistance that makes the authorities realize
> they will pay a very high political price if they let these
> murdering cops walk. The people need to send a loud and
> clear message to the power structure: They can run, but they
> can't hide.
>
> Revolutionary Worker
> Write: Box 3486, Merchandise Mart, Chicago, IL 60654
> Web: http://www.mcs.net/~rwor/
> Phone: 773-227-4066
> Fax: 773-227-4497
>
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