As you know, a jury of their peers in Albany, New York acquitted four of New York City's 'finest' for the murder of 22-year-old Amadou Diallo. The case had its venue changed because of the all the bad cop publicity in NYC. And you know that Albany and New York City have pretty much the same mix of citizenry, right?

Anyway, the defense attorneys and weepy cops Sean Carroll, Edward McMellon, Kenneth Boss and Richard Murphy were able to convince the jury that they thought the mild mannered, West African immigrant drew a gun from his jacket pocket instead of the measly leather wallet that it was. Bully for them.

After all, the young, dark skinned man, one of many in the Big Apple, had the same flesh pigment as a reported serial rapist in the vicinity, so being extra cautious, the highly trained, brave, smug, know-it-all cops, decided to shoot first and ask questions later. It is after all pretty much standard operating procedure for big city cops on duty in the'inner' city.

Oh I know the officers' story. Amadou Diallo was acting suspiciously, seemed nervous, refused to stop as white men with guns approached him and just generally seemed at a loss about what to do with himself. And then to top it off, the young nigger boy pulled a gun. Well, it wasn't really a gun. It was a beeper, or a wallet or some keys or something equally as dangerous. But the point is the police thought it was a gun. Which of course is a reasonable assumption. All colored men in the Bronx carry weapons. Everyone knows that. What, you think the police are stupid?

Now, being a Californian, looking at New York City as the back-drop for Blade Runner, it's easy to make assumptions based on myth and draw conclusions using armchair tactics and 20/20 hindsight. Well, too bad.

Let's turn subversivetalk loose on the following:

1. Rapists are notorious cowards
2. Cops are notorious liars, bullies and crooks
3. These cops were afraid for their lives
4. These cops fed off each other's fear
5. Black men are presumed guilty in America
6. 4 guns, 41 shots, 19 hits versus an empty wallet
7. These cops should be fired from the police force
8. Mayor Guiliani just doesn't get it
9. One innocent dead man, no justice and a lot of tap dancing

Rapists are Notorious Cowards ­ let's be honest there are only one or two crimes worse than rape. The idea of a man stalking, abducting, assaulting and hating a woman is a sad, sad thing. This crime is as old as human sex itself and while there seems to be no cure for the crime of rape, our society is correct in giving convicted rapists some of the most severe sanctions in our canon of law.

But, while very dangerous and evil to the rape victim, rapists are complete cowards when confronted by the outside world. Rapists run from cops, they do not pull guns and fight them. The cops should have known that if Mr. Diallo was their rapist he would have run, or not seeing his chance to run, tried to talk his way out. The last thing a rapist would do is begin a gun battle with police. Name me one rapist in the history of the world that has done this. Why haven't they? Because rapists are cowards, that's why.

And knowing the aforementioned, the cops had to change their story. You see what happened was that they were originally in the neighborhood looking for a rapist, but when they saw Amadou 'acting suspiciously' they quickly knew he was a burglar or some such. And the cops amazing instinct for observation told them that Amadou Diallo was in the middle of committing a crime. It's so obvious. All black men in the Bronx are criminals. Everyone knows that. You think cops on the special, elite Street Crime Unit are stupid? They know what they are doing, believe me.

Who knows what the truth really is about why the cops chose Amadou Diallo to harass? But it must be very convenient to be able chuck and jive their way through the inconsistencies of their tortured excuses. First there is a rapist, then there is no rapist, then there is.

Cops are Notorious Liars, Crooks and Bullies ­ a well known study by the Institute for Human Behavior, Misbehavior and the Suspension of Disbelief says that there are three predominant personality types of all cops.
a. do-gooders
b. crooks
c. bullies

The actual statistical breakdown of these groups in any police force is as follows:
Do-gooders ­ 20%
Crooks ­ 30%
Bullies ­ 50%

Now it is safe to assume that there were no do-gooders on the Street Crime Unit. It's a well known fact that all New York City Cops identified as do-gooders by the Law Enforcement Personality Dysfunction Test are made to ride horse back in Central Park and forced to have their pictures taken by tourists from Europe.

We can also assume that because no gun was planted on the dead Mr. Diallo by the cops, that these cops were not of the crook variety. Indeed all evidence points to the fact that these particular four police officers were all of the bully variety. (We know this because when crooks and bullies work together, the crooks always get their way. If a crook were present, a gun would have been planted. Because a crook would have known that this was murder. The bullies on the other hand would presume the action to be reasonable self-defense. The reason is that bullies suffer the same dysfunction as rapists ­ they are cowards.)

These Cops Were Afraid for Their Lives ­ no argument from anyone. The testimony is clear. These cops thought they were about to die. They saw the gun. They saw the nervous, desperate behavior of a man they had already determined was guilty of something. These are highly trained individuals. If they are afraid, well you better believe they are afraid for a very good reason. No defense is too strong when your very survival is on the line, after all.

These Cops Fed Off Each Other's Fear ­ again this is quite clear. Fear spread like a West African Ebola Plague among the four professional law enforcement officers. Each one thought the other was going down in a hail of hot lead.

Remember these are bullies. They had already tried and convicted Mr. Diallo. So, really the execution was merely a formality. And now the thought of the condemned man fighting back, well this was like icing on the cake, wasn't it? And it all happened so fast didn't it? That's how fear works. Fear is like a gasoline fire. The only you thing you can really do once it starts is to let it burn itself out. The problem of course, is that usually before a gasoline fire is doused, it pretty much starts everything around it on fire as well. In this case, the Street Crime Unit self-immolated in a whirling dervish of fiery fear.

Black Men are Presumed Guilty in America ­ is anyone really going to dispute this? America is a racist society. And the race we hate most is human beings of African dissent. Why? Because they remind us of our crimes against humanity, that's why. We don't really need a history lesson here do we? My only question would be why we don't treat American Indians the same way. Maybe we think its more noble, for some warped reason, to commit genocide than to own slaves.

4 Guns, 41 shots, 19 hits versus an empty wallet ­ after all the hand-wrung speechifying, regretful defense of an honest mistake and tears of remorse, what we are left with is a simple case of slaughter. The reality, which seems to escape the defenders of proper police procedure, is that the cops were dead wrong. There was no gun, no criminal, and no reason other than a cop's nightmare about what was real.

This nightmare, fueled by ignorant, racist bully assumptions about humanity in the Bronx created an atomic reaction of fear. The resulting explosion took the life of a completely innocent man. He was minding his own business. Evidence suggests he was going out for bite to eat. He was trying to decide which local eatery to patronize. The one down the street that way or the one up the street the other way. That's all Amadou Diallo was doing. He was trying to decide where he wanted to go, because in America, if you have the money, you can have breakfast pretty much anywhere you want. He was doing nothing wrong and no amount of self-serving excuses about suspicious behavior can change the facts in this case. And what are the facts? 4 guns, 41 shots and 19 wounds versus an unarmed man.

These Cops Should Be Fired From the Force ­ just because these four cowards were found innocent of murder, doesn't mean that they didn't massacre Amadou Diallo. Actually it was beyond murder. It was arrogance mixed with fear. It was the pure, unadulterated act of the bully. And now we should give them over to the mob. They are worse than incompetent. They are dangerous and in denial.

Mayor Guiliani Doesn't Get It ­ after the verdict the would-be United States Senator from the Empire State was quick to condemn those who criticize the police. Rudy G. thought the verdict acquitting the cops of 2nd degree murder was the same as vindicating his own, much criticized, get tough policy against anyone acting suspiciously on their own front porch. The Mayor said that, yes police need to try and not be racially bigoted, arrogant cowards, but if once in awhile, however regretfully, an innocent nigger is cut down, well that's the price you pay for keeping the rest of the niggers in line.

Now it may seem I'm being harsh on the former prosecutor. Tough. What Rudy needs to understand is that being poor, black, homeless, or any other 'crime' does not give the state license to suspend the constitution that protects the 'guilty' until after due process has taken place. And I can't think of one court in the land that would have convicted Amadou Diallo of anything.

One Innocent Dead Man, No Justice and a Lot of Tap Dancing ­ so where does all this get us? Nowhere, really. One would hope that martyrs like Amadou Diallo, Clifford Glover, Randolph Evans, Eleanor Bumpurs, Michael Stewart, Rick Lewis, Kenny Gamble, LaTanya Haggarty, Kevin Cedeno or Anthony Blaze would allow some real reflection of society to shine through. But it never does. We are left with just one more needless tragedy, that we'd change if could, but golly, we just can't. It's just the way things are.

Finally it's all about tap dancing to a dirge. One wouldn't think that that would be a natural or comfortable thing to do. But I guess, once you get good at something, it gets easier to keep on doing it.

One can't help but think of the words of Jesus as he hung there on the cross with an ironic smile on his face. "Forgive them, Father, because they know not what they do."

Well, I'm not Jesus.

 

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