To the “99.9 percent”: Please speak out.

            Talking with my granddaughter about the national and world-wide protests over the senseless death of 46-year old George Floyd, reminded me of another equally egregious police shooting that occurred in New York City 21 years ago.

On February 4, 1999, four plain-clothed officers fired 41 shots at unarmed Amadou Diallo, a 22-year old Guinean immigrant; 19 of the bullets struck him.

The rationale: one of the officers mistook him for a rape suspect from a year earlier.

Sound familiar?

Mistaken identity. Fear for one’s life. Failure to respond to police commands.

The officers alleged that Diallo, who had been standing outside of his apartment building at 12:30 a.m., ran up the stairs and did not heed commands to stop. When he reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet, one of the officers yelled, “Gun!”

The rest is history.

Subsequently, a grand jury indicted four NYPD officers—Sean Carroll, Richard Murphy, Edward McMellon and Kenneth Boss--for second degree murder and reckless endangerment. However, one year later, a jury acquitted them of all charges.

At the time, I was the City/State editor for The Village Voice in New York City. When the verdict came down, I was visibly shaken and disgusted.

Consequently, Don Forst, my editor-in-chief, asked me to write about my reactions to the verdict.

“The Fire This Time” was published February 29, 2000.

Ironically, my sentiments, back then, will be the same today if Derek Chauvin, J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane, and Tou Thao are acquitted.

Although the circumstances of Diallo and Floyd’s deaths differ, the officers’ seeming indifference to human life, or should I say, black life, puzzles me.

What does it stem from?

But then, I recalled reading about ongoing efforts by white supremacists to infiltrate law enforcement agencies.

• In January 2017, The Intercept published portions of a classified document, FBI Counterterrorism Policy Guide (April 2015) that notes “….militia extremists, white supremacist extremists, and sovereign citizen extremists often have identified active links (sic) to law enforcement officers.”

• In 2019, the Guardian published, “Extremist Cops: how U.S. law enforcement is failing to police itself.” The article notes that according to research conducted by Vida B. Johnson, assistant professor of law at Georgetown University, “….there have been at least 100 different scandals, in more than 40 different states, involving police officers who have sent racist emails and text messages, or made racist comments on social media, since the 1990s.”

On June 1, justsecurity.org posted, “White Supremist Infiltration of Police Force: Fact-Checking National Security Advisor O’Brien.” According to the article, on Sunday, May 31, CNN’s Jake Tapper asked President Trump’s National Security Advisor if he thinks that racism is “a problem in law enforcement agencies in the United States.”

O’Brien said, “I don’t think there is systemic racism. I think 99.9 percent of our law enforcement officers are great Americans…. (But) … there’s a few bad apples.”

Really?

So, why is there almost total silence from the 99.9 percent about police shootings or chokings of unarmed black men and women?

Although an alarming trend of white supremacists infiltrating law enforcement persists, last week just security.org reported on some healing interactions between some police and protesters:

“New Jersey police officers marching with Black Lives Matter protesters, the Dallas and Georgia police chiefs listening to and walking with protesters, and police in both New York and South Florida kneeling in solidarity with protesters. In Flint, Michigan, Genesee County Christopher Swanson removed his riot gear and walked with marchers.

Let the healing begin.

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Photo credit Tomas Ryant from Pexel.