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Diallo Verdict = No Justice
OSU students react to the decision that kept four white police officers on the streets

By Robert Taylor Jr.
Managing Editor

A year and 21 days after four New York City police officers fired 41 shots at Amadou Diallo in the Bronx, there is still no justice.

On Feb. 25, an Albany, NY jury acquitted Edward McMellon, 27, Sean Carroll, 37, Kenneth Boss, 28, and Richard Murphy, 27 for the death of Diallo on Feb. 4, 1999.

Not only were they acquitted of the killing, but also of other charges like second-degree intentional murder and reckless endangerment of bystanders. In all, 24 "not guilty" verdicts were read, as each officer faced six charges.

On the night of the deadly encounter with Diallo, the four officers, all of them members of an elite street crimes unit, were looking for an armed rapist who had struck repeatedly in the Bronx. When they saw Diallo standing on the stoop of his building, they suspected that he might have been acting as a lookout for a robbery. They thought Diallo was armed because when they approached him, he pulled a black object from his pocket. It turned out to be his wallet.

"It's an outrage," said Emeka Onyejekwe, a freshman economics major. "Fourty-one bullets? Even when someone is armed with a gun you shouldn't shoot at someone 41 times. It's a blatant act of racism - the shooting and the verdict."

Keisha Wizzart, 18, a freshman social work major, uttered the same sentiments. "You shoot someone two or three times, ok. But 41? You see someone pulling something from their pocket, then as a police officer, I can understand why you would think it's a gun. But (shooting at the person) 41 times is uncalled for.

"If it was four black police officers and a white dude (who was killed), the verdict would have been different," she said.

the jury was composed of eight whites and four blacks. But "just because there were blacks on the jury, Onyejekwe continued, "doesn't mean they carry the same feelings" as the majority-black population did about the trial, which was that the police officers had intended to kill Diallo, 22, a native of Guinea.

"It's scary to think that a police officer can shoot me at least 41 times and nothing can happen to them," he concluded.

When learned of the verdict, members of the Bronx began flooding the streets, screaming that justice was not served. Even Black Entertainment Television moved the "Movie of the Week" back an hour to air a special edition of "BET Tonight" Feb. 25.

"I think it's messed up, but it's not a surprise," Iesha Grant, a sophomore nursing major, said. "It's not the first time the police have gotten away with brutality."

The police officers "are not going to have a good life," said Danielle Cummings, a freshman majoring in computer science. "If justice isn't served, then people tend to put the law in their own hands.

"Someone's going to beat them down, burn their house and put their kids on the street," she concluded.