Defense Rests in Murder Trial of 4 NYPD Officers

The trial of four white police officers accused of murdering an unarmed black man in a barrage of gunfire entered its final phase Wednesday, as the defense rested and the prosecution asked that the jury be allowed to consider lesser charges.

The final witness, an expert in police procedures, testified that the officers acted appropriately when they ran toward the vestibule of the Bronx building where 22-year-old street vendor Amadou Diallo stood.

“It was not only appropriate, it was really necessary--because the job of the police is to protect life,” said James Fyfe, a professor of criminal justice at Temple University in Philadelphia and a former New York City police lieutenant.

The criminologist--who also acted as a Justice Department consultant in Los Angeles’ Rodney G. King beating case--explained that once a suspect is inside an occupied building, the danger of a hostage situation exists.

“You want to keep him away from innocent citizens, because you don’t know what he is likely to do. . . . This does present the possibility of a barricade situation,” Fyfe added.

Diallo was killed when the officers fired 41 bullets at him in the vestibule of the Bronx building where he lived on Feb. 4, 1998. He was struck 19 times.

Defense lawyers have said that the officers, who thought Diallo was acting suspiciously by darting in and out of the vestibule, believed their lives were in danger because they thought he had a gun. It turned out the object in his hand was his wallet.

The prosecution contends that the officers never yelled a warning before firing and that they continued shooting even as Diallo was going down.

“If a police officer is in a situation where he is facing deadly force and is in danger to be killed, he can use deadly force no matter what happens,” Fyfe told the jury.

Officers Kenneth Boss, 28; Richard Murphy, 27; Sean Carroll, 36; and Edward McMellon, 27, were charged with intentional murder, depraved indifference and reckless endangerment. If convicted, they could face a maximum sentence of 25 years to life in prison.

On Wednesday, the prosecution asked New York State Supreme Court Judge Joseph Teresi to allow the jury to consider lesser charges of manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide. A conviction on the murder charge or the first-degree manslaughter charge would guarantee some jail time for the officers. The lesser charges could allow for probation.

Defense lawyers, while stressing the innocence of their clients, did not object to the request.

Plans call for the prosecution and defense to present closing arguments to the jury on Tuesday.

Arguments about the emotionally charged case also spilled outside the Albany, N.Y., courthouse Wednesday--where the trial was shifted because of pretrial publicity.

“This is a terrible tragedy and not a crime,” said Pat Lynch, president of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Assn., the biggest New York City police union.

“Not every black man on the street can be a suspect,” countered Kadiatou Diallo, the slain man’s mother. She added that if four men in civilian clothes came toward her in the middle of the night, “I would run.”