Diallo shooting
The Event Accidental killing of an unarmed
African immigrant by police officers
Date February 4, 1999
Place Soundview section of the Bronx, New York
After four white police officers shot and killed an unarmed,
innocent immigrant, most African Americans were con-
vinced that the officers were guilty of excessive violence and
racial profiling.
Amadou Diallo, a twenty-three-old immigrant from
Guinea, had come to New York City to study com-
puter science. He had formerly attended a variety of
schools in both Africa and Asia. In order to earn
money for college, he worked as a street salesman, a
common occupation among West African immi-
grants. His apartment building, at 1157 Wheeler Av-
enue, was located in a neighborhood that was
plagued by criminal activities and gang violence. En-
glish was not his first language, and he sometimes
had trouble understanding what people were saying.
Early in the morning of February 4, 1999, Diallo
was standing next to his building when police offi-
cers Edward McMellon, Sean Carroll, Kenneth Boss,
and Richard Murphy passed by in an unmarked
car. As members of the Street Crime Unit, they
were wearing civilian clothes. Thinking that Diallo
matched the description of a serial rapist, they ap-
proached Diallo to ask questions. Although they
loudly identified themselves as officers, Diallo ran
up the outside steps toward his apartment. Ignoring
their orders to show his hands, he reached into his
coat pocket. One officer thought he saw a weapon
and yelled “gun!” The officers fired a total of forty-
one rounds, striking him nineteen times. To their
horror, they discovered that he had simply pulled
out his wallet.
Thousands marched with the Reverends Jesse
Jackson and Al Sharpton to protest the shooting of
Diallo. In March, a Bronx grand jury indicted the of-
ficers on charges of second-degree murder. Because
of the emotional pretrial publicity in New York City,
a state appellate court ordered a change of venue to
the city of Albany. On February 25, 2000, the jury
unanimously voted to acquit the officers of all
charges, having deliberated for only two days. In re-
action, the demonstrations became larger and an-
grier. About seventeen hundred protesters were ar-
rested for disorderly conduct during the course of
the controversy.
In 2001, the Department of Justice announced
that there was insufficient evidence to charge the
officers with a federal violation of Diallo’s civil
rights. The victim’s mother and stepfather, however,
brought a civil suit against New York City, asking
$61 million for wrongful death and lack of reason-
able restraint. In 2004, the two parties agreed to a
settlement of $3 million.Impact Many observers believed that the shooting
death of Amadou Diallo demonstrated a common
tendency for police officers to devalue the lives of
blacks and to harbor negative stereotypes of black
criminality. The angry protests during and after the
officers’ trial, moreover, showed the extent to which
many persons of African ancestry resented and dis-
trusted police conduct. In response to the contro-
versy, New York City instituted a number of reforms,The Nineties in America Diallo shooting 255
People gather outside New York’s City Hall to protest the police shoot-
ing of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed African immigrant who was
killed by officers five days earlier.(AP/Wide World Photos)