Gregory Freeman: Diallo Case Shows Why Blacks Don't Trust Our Justice System. P-D 2/29/2000

Headline: DIALLO CASE SHOWS WHY BLACKS DON'T TRUST OUR JUSTICE SYSTEM
Reporter: By Gregory Freeman

Publication: ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Last Printed: Tue., Feb. 29, 2000
Section: METRO, Page: B1, Edition: FIVE STAR LIFT

A travesty
   "What happened in the Amadou Diallo case will happen again and again and again and again, and nothing will be done about it . . . .What the Diallo case reinforces is that police can murder black men whenever and however they choose and get away with it."
   With that began one of many e-mails that I received from readers, many African-American, who said the Diallo trial spoke horrors about the criminal justice system -- not to mention undoing countless hours that had gone into community oriented policing in New York and elsewhere.
   Diallo was the African immigrant who was gunned down in New York last year by four white police officers. The officers were acquitted last week.

Not only am I outraged, lots of other Americans are too.
And why not? As Americans, we're asked to place our faith in the criminal justice system. Yet when something like the miscarriage of justice that took place in the Diallo case occurs, we're supposed to say that's the American way and go home.
The police officers were found innocent of any criminal wrongdoing.

That, despite evidence presented during the trial that strongly suggested that they fired even after Diallo was down.
Of the 19 bullets that hit him, one struck him on the bottom of his shoe, and bullets also hit him in the shin and lower leg and then traveled up his legs. Two officers emptied their guns of 16 rounds each. A total of 41 bullets were fired at an unarmed man. The cops had testified that they thought Diallo was reaching for a gun when he reached for his wallet.

The result was the death of a hard-working, 22-year-old immigrant from Guinea who had hoped to attend college in America.
By all accounts, Diallo was a good man. He'd never been in any sort of trouble, and he had done nothing wrong at the time of his death. Except, maybe, being a black man, the one thing he had no control over.

On the same day that the cops in the Diallo case were acquitted, a case was closed here in St. Louis. Locally, another innocent person was gunned down after a hail of bullets had been fired. The person charged with that death was given six life terms plus 45 years.
In that case, 19-year-old Harold Rubin was sentenced for his involvement in the drive-by killing two years ago of 6-year-old Dominique Evans. Authorities said that Rubin, armed with an AK-47, sprayed a van parked in front of little Dominique's house. A bullet killed her as she played nearby. Her death, Rubin had testified, was unintentional. But many who followed Dominique's case felt the punishment was appropriate. After all, how do you murder an innocent person -- for whatever reason -- and get off with it?

So was Dominique's case any more heinous than the Diallo case?
The police involved are clearly responsible for Diallo's death. Is it fair that they get off scot-free, without any convictions at all, even manslaughter?

The case is loaded with lots of questions. Why did Diallo back away from the cops? Would the verdict have been the same had both the cops and Diallo been white? Why did the judge instruct jurors that they must acquit if they thought the officers felt threatened by Diallo and fired in self-defense?
Diallo's gone and can't tell his side of the story. We can only guess what might have happened had all involved been white. And we can't get inside the judge's head.

Still, one basic fact remains: An innocent man was shot 19 times by police officers who said later that they made "a mistake."
A person's life is a pretty costly "mistake."
And I always thought that in our system of criminal justice, people had to pay for their mistakes.
I guess I was wrong.

Daniel Schesch - Webweaver

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