first came across this story listening to the song "diallo" by wyclef Jean.

In the early hours of February 4, 1999, Amadou Diallo, a 23 year old guniean immigrant was shot dead close to his apartment by four plainclothes new York policemen after returning from his meal.

They claimed to have mistaken him for a rape suspect from the year before. He was shot at 41 times and was struck by 19 of the bullets.

According to the officers Sean Carroll, Richard Murphy, Edward Mchellon and Kenneth Boss, they mistook him for a suspect in a rape case under investigation and followed him to the steps of his apartment house. They ordered him to 'show his hands' but he didn't seem to understand so he reached into his jacket and brought out an object but due to the light, they could only see his sillhouette and a small square object.

Seeing the object which they believed to be a gun, one of the officers, carrol, yelled 'he's got a gun' and started firing. He was joined by mchellon tripped backward off the stairs causing the others to believe he had been shot and continue firing.

On further investigation, it was found that he had no weapons on or near him. What he pulled out was a small black wallet and a beeper.

That wasn't the first time something like that had happened. On Halloween 1997, one of the officers Kenneth boss had in an apartment building, shot an unarmed black man twice killing him in response to complaints about a man in the building menacing others with a gun. Witnesses confirmed that the victim didn't have any weapons, just a set of keys with him.

On the 4th of March 1999, a Bronx grand jury charged the four officers with murder and reckless endangerment. On 16th December, a change of venue to New York, Albany was ordered due to pretrial publicity. After two years of deliberation, on February 25, 2000, the jury in Albany freed them of all charges.

In April 2000, Diallo's parents filed for a lawsuit of $61 million against the city and its officers and they won a settlement of $3 million on march 2004.

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