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Trial of killer cops moved to Albany, N.Y.

Diallo protesters say they'll follow until justice is done

By Pat Chin

Brooklyn, N.Y.

The fix is in to secure an acquittal for four racist cops charged by a Bronx grand jury with second-degree murder in the shooting death of West African immigrant Amadou Diallo.

On Dec. 16, five judges of a state appellate court granted a defense motion seeking a change of venue for the criminal trial of white police officers Kenneth Boss, Sean Carroll, Edward McMellon and Richard Murphy. It was a gross travesty of justice.

The four undercover cops had been indicted March 25. Their trial was set to be heard in the Bronx before Judge Patricia Wright, an African-American woman.

But the appellate court granted a change in venue--moving the cops' trial to the predominantly white upstate county of Albany, where all the judges are white and male. The court made its ruling even before the questioning of prospective jurors, which is highly unusual according to legal experts.

Diallo, 22, was viciously gunned down by the four cops on Feb. 4 in an unprovoked attack as he was entering his Bronx residence. He wasn't armed. Nor did he threaten anyone.

But the cops unleashed a barrage of deadly firepower that killed the young Guinean street vendor. He was hit by 19 of 41 bullets, some of which struck him, according to forensic evidence, even after he was disabled on the ground.

The court's bombshell decision was met with a firestorm of angry condemnation by Diallo's parents Kadiadou Diallo and Saikou Diallo, community leaders, legal experts and others. So transparent is the attempt to set the stage for acquittal that even the big-business media have criticized the court's decision.

Diallo's killing had sparked huge multinational demonstrations earlier this year, involving thousands of people who took to the streets daily against police brutality and racism. Hundreds committed acts of civil disobedience and were arrested in front of police headquarters.

Labor leaders and rank-and-file unionists were there. So were community activists, well-known actors, students, city officials and others. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender militants were the first to be taken into custody after they blocked rush-hour traffic in lower Manhattan.

Three weeks after the grand jury indictment, on April 15, some 10,000 demonstrators rocked the Brooklyn Bridge in yet another protest against racism, police brutality and Rudolph Giuliani, New York's cop-coddling mayor. Many placards linked justice for Diallo to the struggle to free Black political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Defense lawyer Bruce Roberts argued that the protests received so much media attention that his clients couldn't get a fair trial in the Bronx. The court agreed but went even further, moving the proceeding to Albany.

Based on "a tidal wave of prejudicial publicity," wrote the robed cabal, "even an attempt to select an unbiased jury would be fruitless."

The judgment was based on a defense-conducted poll that passed as proof that 12 impartial jurors could not be found in all of the Bronx--a borough of millions. But Roberts' brief neglected to mention that 71 percent of Bronx residents answered "yes" when asked by his own pollster if they could set aside their opinions and consider the evidence before deciding a verdict.

The defense side refused to disclose who paid for the $20,000 survey, the use of which is highly unusual in the context.

`The aroma is unmistakable'

Bruce Roberts is a former Bronx district attorney. He was chief administrative judge in that borough for years. As such, he has tremendous access to the court system, "especially the clerks who know everything in advance," wrote a columnist in the Dec. 20 New York Post.

This includes information on which five of the 15 appellate judges will be sitting on any given day. Anyone privy to this information has a clear strategic advantage.

On the day the court ruled on the defense motion five of the most conservative judges were hearing cases. One was Alfred Lerner, a close longtime friend of Roberts. All were right-wing white judges appointed by Gov. George Pataki.

Absent that day was Milton Williams, the only African American appellate judge.

"The aroma of influence, favoritism and cronyism is unmistakable," commented the Post column. "It is easy to see how someone with Roberts' courthouse connections could have the leverage to manipulate."

An article headlined "Albany County is Friendly Place for Police Officers on Trial," in the Dec. 18 New York Times revealed the dirty strategy of defense lawyers.

"The court dropped the case into a place where the jury pool is overwhelmingly white and inclined to accept the police version of events," explained the Times. "Albany County's prosecutors have one of the highest conviction rates in the state, but in criminal cases against police officers, the defendants usually walk free."

This includes two white cops charged last year with beating Black college student Jermaine Henderson while he was handcuffed in a police garage. Henderson had been arrested in a bar fight. But he didn't testify at the trial of the police because the district attorney refused to grant him immunity from prosecution for his role in the bar melee.

Earlier, in 1984, Albany cops shot and killed Jessie Davis, a schizophrenic Black man, in his apartment. Even though Davis' family testified that he was unarmed when he was killed, a grand jury refused to indict the officers. Albany residents "still refer angrily" to his death, wrote the Times.

More recently, a detective charged with stealing cocaine from a drug arrest was acquitted on most counts. Remaining charges that deadlocked the jury were then plea-bargained down to misdemeanors. The detective walked free.

The Bronx is 42 percent Black, 48 percent Latino. Albany's 293,000 residents are 10 percent Black, 2 percent Latino and 86 percent white. All of the judges on the county bench are white.

White residents of this upstate city and well-kept suburbs are overwhelmingly middle class and don't face police repression.

Black people, however, live in the run-down parts of town. Only last month heavily armed police rampaged through their Arbor Hill neighborhood, terrorizing and roughing up residents in their search for a Black suspect who allegedly shot and wounded two cops.

The court's outrageous decision handed defense lawyers a tremendous advantage that sets the stage for the acquittal of Boss, Carroll, McMellon and Murphy. "We came riding back from the sunset," boasted Bennett M. Epstein, co-counsel to Bruce Roberts.

`Amadou's Army'

But community activists are mobilizing against this flagrant injustice.

On Dec. 18 the Rev. Al Sharpton told a packed meeting in Harlem: "We'll even go to Alaska if necessary" to win justice for Diallo. The civil-rights activist pledged to "recruit an army of righteous souls that are willing to fight no matter where." Hundreds of people signed up for "Amadou's Army."

Diallo's father Saikou Diallo and Winnie Mandela joined Sharpton on the stage. Saikou Diallo called his son "a child of the Bronx" and said he had hoped to see justice done there.

Winnie Mandela, South African veteran of the anti-apartheid struggle, condemned police brutality and urged people to keep fighting for justice.

The court's decision to grant a change of venue for the trial of the four killer cops--brutal paid agents of the capitalist state--was so transparently racist that even the bourgeois press was forced to chastise it.

These organs of Wall Street and big business no doubt recall the explosive reaction to a similar set-up in 1992. That's when four white cops were acquitted of savagely beating Black motorist Rodney King.

They were found not guilty after their trial was moved from Los Angeles to the white middle-class enclave of Simi Valley.

The rebellion that erupted against that unjust verdict left Los Angeles ablaze.

Copyright © 1999 workers.org