Verdict Angers Bronx Neighborhood

In the rain outside the Bronx building where four white policemen fired 41 shots at Amadou Diallo, the crowd quickly gathered when the not-guilty verdicts were announced Friday. Some pulled wallets from their pockets and held them up--symbols of their rage.

The image was stark. Diallo, a 22-year-old West African immigrant, was slain because the police mistook his wallet for a gun.

“Assassinate! Assassinate!” some protesters shouted in Spanish as police reinforcements in riot gear stood guard behind barricades on Wheeler Avenue.

Other demonstrators held up signs proclaiming “Professional killers.”

“I believe it’s sad they were not convicted on any of the charges,” said Kelly Spencer, 23, an administrative assistant in an investment bank who lives in the neighborhood. “I think it sends a poor message to our community that someone can be shot 41 times and hit 19 times with not even having a weapon.”

“He was shot for suspicion, not anything concrete,” she said, bitterness etched in her voice. “I am sad. I am mad that I am a citizen and a resident of a city that is governed by Rudy Giuliani.

“I believe he has cultivated this environment. He has sent a message indirectly and directly to the officers of New York City.”

“Today’s message is, ‘Don’t move or you might get shot,’ ” added Robert Torres, 33, a truck driver who lives two blocks from the building where Diallo was killed Feb. 4, 1999. “The first thing you do when you get to your door is thank God.”

In the vestibule of Diallo’s home, candles, flowers, and newspaper and magazine clippings formed a montage of his life--and death.

Seeking to calm the crowd that swelled to several hundred people and grew angrier as the evening progressed, New York State Controller H. Carl McCall, who is black, called for calm.

“I understand how outraged people feel here,” he said.

McCall said that the Justice Department would review the case, and he urged the protesters to react “in a dignified manner.”

Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer, who earlier had expressed fears about potential violence, told the crowd that he too understood their “high emotions.”

The verdict “does not in any way eliminate the shock, anger and tremendous sense of outrage,” he said.

Police--who had been preparing for weeks for possible violence after the trial--at first took the low-key approach. But as the crowd begin to swell and the rhetoric grew more heated, officers appeared in riot gear and erected barricades on the block where Diallo was slain.

“There is no riot here. There is no riot here,” the crowd shouted at them.

A separate group of protesters began a candlelight vigil in front of the police barricades. Still another group marched several blocks to the 43rd Precinct, where they were met by about 40 officers in riot gear.

Nine people were charged with disorderly conduct or resisting arrest, police said. No other arrests or problems were reported in a crowd estimated to number several hundred.

“No justice! No peace!” the demonstrators shouted.

Some of Diallo’s neighbors accused the police of racial profiling, of stereotyping innocent young men as potential drug dealers.

“You gotta walk a straight line,” said a demonstrator. “You can’t look their way,” he said, glancing at the massed police presence.

“The younger generation needs to stop and think. Look at what happened to an adult.”