Talk:Amadou Diallo

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Since the only people who know what happened in the hallway shooting are either a)dead or b)have potential reason to lie shouldn't some of the statements in this article be a little more qualified? I'm thinking of the "did not threaten the officer's in any way". Since the officer's defence was that they explicitly felt threatened this implies that they were lying. Also when it states that the fallen officer "appeared to be shot" that buys into the officer's story about what happened. I also have a chronological question about the fallen officer. My understanding was that he fell either before or right as they began firing. Some of the claims I remember implied that the fall seemed to confirm their impression that Diallo was armed.

I think all of this is moot, since no weapon was ever found at the scene. I'm sure even if this excessive use of force was neccessitated by a threat, the first thing they did would have been to point out the firearm the suspect had. V1rtue 21:41, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

This article is very biased against the NYPD. The authors have no knowledge of police procedure and in fact sound more like the typical anti-NYPD rants of police haters like Al Sharpton. The NYPD protects people. If Diallo was not complying with the officers instructions that is a red flag to officers and makes them more alert. I am not going to edit this article, but I will leave it to you all to make it fair and balanced, not biased towards the dead perp. Spring3100 01:13, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

The fact that you called a man never charged with a crime nor suspected of one outside of this incident a "perp" completely invalidates your entire argument. And the argument that the "NYPD protects people" is just as invalid as it is, in and of itself, an opinion and therefore biased. Beyond that, whether he was "complying" or not is almost a moot point considering that it could be argued that the officers did not comply with the Fourth Amendment, protecting against unreasonable search and seizure. Either way, last I checked not complying with an officer is not a crime punishable by death. And besides, he wasn't "not complying" he was misunderstanding. There is a difference. NinedenLtD 21:45, 12 January 2006.

Sorry, but if i misunderstand four individuals wearing badges and yelling "stop, this is NYPD" and I then run away and go digging for something in my jacket -- i should very well be prepared to be shot. There is such a thing of taking responsibility for one's actions -- and in this case this individual took the ultimate responsibility. It sucks, but trying to play this boring blame game is ridiculous. That tax papers gave his family $3,000,000 is just ludicrous. It is all racial bias and extreme political correctness out of control. Your statement "not complying with an officer is not a crime punishable by death" is not only ridiculous, but moronic. Not complying with an officer is a SURE WAY to get killed. You become a cop in a major city and come back here in a year and respond to that -- if you have the balls.

Since Diallo is, unfortunately, not alive to tell us what he was thinking, it is a bit of an assumption to assume he was misunderstanding. Perhaps he was just afraid of the police as plenty of people are, especially those who are of so called minority races, whether or not this fear is justified. It's a bit pretentious to assume you know what he was thinking or why he reacted the way he did.

^Even if Diallo didn't comply with the officers' instructions 41 rounds is a little much... --S0ulbythepound 04:26, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Too much? Based on what? Should they have fired 1? 2? 10? This isn't hollywood, one hit or 10 won't instantly stop a person. Besides, there were four officers. And their aim was pretty bad - only 19 hits from a few feet away. --Mmx1 04:44, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cultural references

This section is huge, and dwarfs the rest of the article, unreasonably and unnecessarily. It needs to be trimmed or streamlined so it's more useful to readers than a mammoth list of everyone who's ever mentioned Diallo's name in a song ever. If no one else is interested in doing it, I guess I'll put it on my to-do list. Ford MF 23:08, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

When the author refers to Mr. Diallo as an "immigrant," he is not giving you the "entire" story. While Mr. Diallo may have had authorization to work in the United States, he had in fact gotten his residency by filing a fraudulent asylum application with the US Department of Justice. Mr. Diallo was in this country because he lied under oath on numerous occasions as to his nationality and regarding the death of his parents (they recovered 3-million dollars as compensation for their loss) at the hands of officals in Mauritania. Mr. Diallo was in fact Sengalese, and not from Mauritania.

While these facts do not alter the culpability of the NYPD, such an ommision could be evidence of the author's bias. What this "West African Immigrant" was doing in this country and how he got here, is relevant background information. This is the reason his fraudulent asylum application was admitted as evidence at the criminal trial. Amadou Diallo: West African immigrant, or a fraudulent "huckster?" Lets let the readers decide, not the author.

1) Please sign your comments using four tildes (~~~~).

2) Scoundrel or saint, he's just as dead. Ford MF 01:17, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Titles

Normally this would be pretty routine, but this article seems a bit controversial, so I'll explain myself before editing. I'm removing the titles ("Officer ____") from the subsequent mentions of the police officers, as per the manual of style. Natalie 15:25, 27 November 2006 (UTC)