Whoops.
That's the official word of New York City's mayor, police chief and courts regarding the Feb. 4, 1999, shooting death of West African immigrant Amadou Diallo, who was unarmed when four cops from the street crime unit pumped 19 bullets into his body. An Albany, N.Y., jury acquitted the cops on Friday.
"We thought his wallet was a gun," the four officers -- Sean Carroll, Richard Murphy, Kevin Boss and Ed Mellon -- testified in their defense. They admitted they were mistaken.
Whoops.
New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and Police Chief Howard Safir both called Diallo's shooting "a tragic mistake."
Whoops.
Lawyers for the accused rehashed the same theme throughout their opening statements.
"This is a tragedy, not a crime," they intoned to the jury.
In other words, whoops. Our bad. A mistake. A minor error. A tiny glitch in the great New York City crime fighting effort. No big deal. Just a little goof, is all. Now, it's time to get on with business as usual.
There are two problems with this line of thinking. First, business as usual would mean that the street crime unit would return to stopping, frisking, questioning, intimidating and harassing any person walking along, minding his or her own business. In short, the unit would be free to continue the same practices, using the same tactics of repression, that triggered Diallo's shooting.
The second problem is that Diallo's death wasn't a "tragic mistake." It was a screw-up of Brobdingnagian proportions, so large and egregious that returning to business as usual simply will not suffice. Heads should roll over this one. It's only a question of whose head should be first.
Let's start with Carroll, Murphy, Boss and Mellon. They've got to go. They've already confessed they can't tell a wallet from a handgun and that they couldn't even tell if they were under fire. Whether you support the jury's verdict or reject it, you'd have to be a very trusting soul to say you feel safer with these guys on the street.
Next, fire the street crime unit supervisor at the time of the shooting. Then, can his boss. Work up the New York Police Department chain of command until you get to Chief Safir, then kick him out. Then, New York's City Council can get on with the business of impeaching Giuliani for adopting a policing strategy that arguably resulted in the grossest peacetime violation of civil liberties in the nation's history.
