By Monalisa Sarin

Special to USAfricaonline.com
and USAfrica The Newspaper

"They took what they felt to be and feel to be appropriate police action.  I think it will likely develop that Mr.  Diallo had a language barrier which prevented him from understanding and complying with the officers orders and made him continue to act in an aggressive manner toward the police officers." This statement is from Stephen Worth, the lawyer for the four New York Police fficer's who have accepted responsibility for shooting Amoudu Diallo to death.

On Thursday morning, February 4, 1999 Amadou Amadou Diallo a West Africanimmigrant from Guinea was viciously gunned down to the deadly tune of forty-one bullets.  Let me set the record straight; forty-one bullets were fired at Mr.  Diallo; however according to the medical examiners report Mr.  Diallo was hit nineteen times.  He died at his Bronx, New York apartment in the vestibule.  He was only twenty-two years of age.

 The four undercover police officers said they were looking for a serial rapist and wanted to question Mr.  Diallo.  It has been reported that when the police approached Mr.  Diallo he reached inside his pocket.  That is when the police fired the forty-one shots.  According to police the immigrant did not understand English too well and thatís where the problem came in.  Well according to Amadou Diallo's roommate, he spoke English well, but slow and he stuttered.  To me, this does not sound like a man who had a language barrier, but four undercover white police officers who saw a black man and went berserk.  Let it also be known that Amadou Diallo had no weapon on him and he had no prior criminal record.  All they found was a beeper and keys.  The United States Attorney's office is investigating the case.  We all know what this means.  What can they possible come up with?  Why did the police have to fire forty-one times?  I'm sure that after the first short Mr.  Diallo went down.  How can anyone defend these officers?  At what point did any of the officers say "hey this is wrong." Could it be that they considered him not a threat only after his body was full of holes?

This is supposed to be Black History month.  A time to reflect upon what we have accomplished.  A time to be proud.  A time to lift up those spirits who brutally died just so you and I could live in this country in peace as decent human beings.  We are not at peace.  What happened to this man, a hunter would not even do to his prey.  What these four officers did was strip him of every bit of dignity he had; firing as if they were at target practice and he was the target.  To me, much has not changed since the sixties and my flesh crawls with sadness.  When people say we've come a long way, at first I'm applaud then I cry inside as I remember Abner Louima who is also an immigrant from Haiti, residing in Brooklyn, New York.

Police shoved a plunger up his rectum and in his mouth right in the police station!  He will never be the same.  At the time of the event he was only thirty years old.

We don't march anymore and when we do it doesnít amount to anything.  There was a time when something like this happened you could not shut black people up.  We had a theory of "if it's going down letís get it over with." Now we just talk about it around the dinner table.  Some don't even know what happened.  Not all, but many of us feel that now that we have our plush jobs, fancy cars and nice homes on the hill we have arrived.  Well think of this; the next time it could be you.  Remember, both of these men have no prior record and had no weapon on them at the time of the incident.

Diallo came here in 1997 for a better life.  It is reported by friends that he worked for twelve hours and often sent money home to his family.  He bothered no one and his only crime was being a black man in the United States.      We are all one (Africans).  For all those folks who don't consider themselves black and for all the blacks who don't consider themselves African, you better wake up, because to too many Europeans we are all the same, dead!  My heart goes out to his family as they try to make sense of something that should have never happened.  Welcome to America!  You know me by my spirit!

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