Amadou Diallo
Amadou Diallo
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| Time | 12:40 AM EST |
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| Date | February 4, 1999 |
| Location | Soundview, Bronx, New York City |
| Deaths | 1 (Amadou Diallo) |
| Suspect(s) | Edward McMellon Sean Carroll Kenneth Boss Richard Murphy |
| Charges | Second-degree murder Reckless endangerment |
| Verdict | All not guilty |
| Convictions | None |
| Litigation | Lawsuit filed against city and officers for $61 million, settled for $3 million Daniels, et al. v. the City of New York (class-action lawsuit) |
The shooting of Amadou Diallo occurred on February 4, 1999, when Amadou Diallo, a 23-year-old immigrant from Guinea, was shot and killed by four New York City Police Department plain-clothed officers—Sean Carroll, Richard Murphy, Edward McMellon and Kenneth Boss—after they mistook him for a rape suspect, from one year earlier. The officers fired a combined total of 41 shots, 19 of which struck Diallo, outside his apartment at 1157 Wheeler Avenue in the Soundview section of The Bronx. The four were part of the now-defunct Street Crimes Unit. All four officers were charged with second-degree murder and acquitted at trial in Albany, New York.
Diallo was unarmed, and a firestorm of controversy erupted subsequent to the event as the circumstances of the shooting prompted outrage both within and outside New York City. Issues such as police brutality, racial profiling, and contagious shooting were central to the ensuing controversy.
One of four children of Saikou and Kadijatou Diallo, Amadou's family is part of an old Fulbe trading family in Guinea. He was born in Sinoe County, Liberia, on September 2, 1975 while his father was working there, and grew up following his family to Togo, Bangkok and Singapore, attending schools in Thailand, and later in Guinea. In September 1996, he came to New York City where other family members had immigrated. He and a cousin started a business. He had reportedly come to New York City to study but had not enrolled in any school. According to his family's lawyer, Kyle B. Watters, he sought to remain in the United States by filing an application for political asylum under false pretenses, saying that he was from Mauritania and that his parents had been killed in fighting to buttress his claim that he had credible fear of going back to his country. He worked as a street peddler, selling videotapes, gloves and socks from the sidewalk along 14th Street during the day. He was an undocumented immigrant.
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