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NYPD clears cops who killed Diallo By Meneejeh Moradian | May 11, 2001 | Page 2 NEW YORK--In another round of sham justice, the four cops who killed Amadou Diallo in a hail of 41 bullets two years ago were cleared of wrongdoing in an NYPD internal investigation. As in their criminal trial, the cops were found to be "defending themselves" when they opened fire at the 22-year-old African immigrant. "In their mind's eye, they perceived a very real danger, and under a perceived combat situation, they behaved appropriately," an NYPD official declared. In fact, the four cops were part of the department's elite Street Crimes Unit, trained to treat poor minority neighborhoods as "combat" zones--and to shoot first and ask questions later. "I have been polite," Kadiatou Diallo, Amadou's mother, said at a press conference. "I have been reasonable, but I am beyond the limit. "For me, justification for what these officers have done is not possible." Diallo's murder ignited a wave of protests involving thousands and daily civil disobedience actions. It exposed the deadly effects of racial profiling and produced an outcry for change. We have to keep up that fight--against a system that lets killer cops go scot-free.
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