NEW YORK - February 5, 1999 (Miami Herald) - An unarmed street peddler was killed Thursday by four police officers who fired 41 shots at him in the small vestibule of his Bronx apartment house.
Police said the victim, Ahmed Diallo, 22, a West African immigrant who had no criminal record, was killed by a team of plainclothes officers investigating a series of rapes and robberies. Diallo was struck by 24 bullets, authorities said.
The officers were placed on paid administrative leave while officials review the incident.
A Democratic state legislator, Ruben Diaz Jr., immediately criticized the >>shooting<< and asked that it be investigated by the the Justice Department.
Although the shooting occurred at about 1 a.m., police released little information Thursday night and could not say whether Diallo was a suspect in any crime.
Inspector Michael Collins, a Police Department spokesman, said the four officers were investigating a pattern of 40 rapes and robberies in Manhattan and the Bronx when they encountered Diallo at about 12:45 a.m. near the doorway of his apartment building.
The officers, who had been riding in an unmarked car, apparently followed Diallo into the vestibule of his apartment house and, for reasons unknown, opened fire. Two of the officers emptied their 16-shot automatic pistols, police said.
Collins said it was unclear why officers had approached Diallo. He said the officers did not have an arrest warrant for Diallo and had not been dispatched to the apartment building.
The officers were assigned to an elite group called the Street Crime Unit, which travels the city saturating areas where there is a high rate of crime.
Diallo, who fled Mauritania during a civil war and came to New York about a year ago, was seeking political asylum in the United States. He sold hats, gloves and videotapes on Manhattan streets for a living.
Diallo lived in a neighborhood populated largely by African immigrants. Friends described him as a devout Muslim with no wife or children in the United States.
"I am very angry," said his uncle, Mamadou Diallo. "He was a skinny guy. Why would the police shoot somebody of that nature 30 or 40 times? We see the police and we give them all the respect we have."
A friend, Demba Sanyang, 39, said: "We have a very undemocratic society back home, and then we come here. We don't expect to be killed by law enforcement officers."
New York Police Slaying of Unarmed Man Probed
NEW YORK - February 5, 1999 (Reuters) - Officials Friday were investigating why four police officers fired 41 shots at an unarmed immigrant street peddler with no criminal record, killing him as he entered his Bronx apartment building.
"It looks like one guy may have panicked and the rest followed suit," a police official who spoke on condition of anonymity told The New York Times Friday,
Police identified the man as Ahmed Diallo, 22, and said he was unarmed and had no previous criminal record.
Friends said Diallo emigrated from Guinea after fleeing civil strife in Mauritania in 1997. Working 12-hour days as a peddler on Manhattan's 14th Street, he sent much of his earnings home to his parents in West Africa, they said.
Early Thursday as he entered the vestibule of his Bronx apartment building, four undercover police officers investigating a recent shooting of a cab driver approached him and identified themselves.
Police sources said Diallo reached into his pocket and the officers, who are all white, thought he was going for a gun. They fired 41 shots, striking Diallo 19 times. A beeper and wallet were all that were found beside his bullet-riddled body. He died at the scene.
"The police told me it was a mistake," Diallo's roommate, Momodou Kujabi, told the Daily News.
The officers, three of whom have shot civilians in the past, were all police veterans with five years or more on the force. They have been placed on administrative duty.
None has been questioned, in accordance with New York's "48-hour rule" under which police under investigation do not have to answer questions from superiors for two days.
"At this point the officers have chosen not to speak," Police Commissioner Howard Safir said. "I'm hoping they'll come forward and tell us what happened, but at this point it's very hard for me to make a judgment because I have very few facts."
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who in the past has been quick to defend officers accused by community leaders of reckless civilian shootings, only asked that the legal system be given "a little time to work."
But black activist Al Sharpton asked at a forum on police brutality Thursday night, "Are we talking about policing or are we talking about a firing squad?"
"Crime has gone down ... everywhere but the NYPD," he added.
Other local officials called for a federal investigation, while Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer called the shooting "incredibly troubling" and said "all New Yorkers deserve an explanation."
Police Internal Affairs and the Brooklyn District's Attorney are investigating.
Devastated friends and relatives described Diallo as a devout Muslim and avid pro basketball fan who neither smoked nor drank. They said he sent money to his parents in West Africa and talked about going to Baruch College to get a formal education.
Now they are making plans to send his body home. "We have a very undemocratic society back home, and then we come here. We don't expect to be killed by law enforcement officers," Demba Sanyang, a friend of Diallo's, told the Times.
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[posted Sat, Feb 6, 1999]
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