Not even a slap
on the wrist
Diallo verdicts bring
instant condemnation in the streets
By
Deirdre Griswold
New York
The
people of the ancient world turned a thoughtful observation into a proverb--the
one about the straw that breaks the camel's back.
That's
how it is in life. Things happen, one after another after another. It seems that
nothing changes. And then comes the one straw that becomes too
many.
The
straw for many people not only in New York but around the country--and probably
around the world, too--was the Amadou Diallo case. It wasn't the first police
murder of an innocent Black person. It won't be the last. But when the news
broke that four cops had pumped this young immigrant's body full of lead--in the
vestibule of his own building--for no other reason than that he was holding a
wallet in his hand, it was just too
much.
And
now come the verdicts: not guilty, not guilty, not guilty, not guilty. On all
charges.
More
straws of lead to break the camel's
back.
Where
is there justice? Not in the courts, that's for sure. And so thousands of people
went to the one place where they could tell the world what they thought--the
streets. Feb. 25, the night of the verdicts, hundreds gathered in the Bronx at
the building where Diallo had lived. The cops are white. Diallo was African. But
the crowds that gathered contained people of all nationalities. Such an
injustice opens many
eyes.
The
next day thousands went to 59th Street and Fifth Ave., responding to a call from
People's Justice 2000, a coalition of over 20
organizations.
As
they marched down the avenue of snooty shops and towering buildings, the
demonstrators waved wallets in the air, taunting the police: "It's a wallet.
Shoot
me!"
The
crowd kept growing. At St. Patrick's Cathedral several young people sat in the
street and were arrested. The rest kept going, homemade signs castigating the
racists in blue.
At
42nd Street, the heart of midtown Manhattan, police of every description--on
motorcycles, in vans, in buses--closed in around the lead banner, a 12-footer
from the May 7 Mumia Mobilization that read "Justice for Amadou Diallo." But it
took the cops an hour to contain the protest, which shut off 42nd Street, and
then only after many arrests. All told, nearly 100 people were hauled off to
jail that
day.
Earlier
that day, up in Harlem, another angry crowd of hundreds had met at Rev. Al
Sharpton's National Action Network office to denounce the process of injustice
that had led to such shocking verdicts. They called for a rally at the United
Nations the next
day.
So
on Feb. 27, another demon stration of thousands brought this issue to the
world's
attention.
Around
the U.S., the story was the same. There were spontaneous walkouts by
students--like the one at Lincoln High School in Jersey City on Monday that was
followed by an authorized protest of students and teachers the next
day.
In
Washington on Feb. 28, Diallo was on the minds and lips of the 2,000
demonstrators for Mumia Abu-Jamal. And in San Francisco the same day, at yet
another Mumia rally where there were 156 arrests, the Diallo case added to the
demonstrators'
passion.
Among
those arrested in San Francisco was Workers World Party's vice presidential
candidate Gloria La
Riva.
Amadou
Diallo cannot be brought back. But his name is now a weapon in the living
struggle against racism, police brutality and the vicious U.S. criminal
injustice system.
This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License.
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