Debate Over Diallo Verdict

Re “The Travesty Is That the Amadou Diallo Verdict Was ‘Right,’ ” by Madison Shockley, Commentary, Feb. 29: The Diallo verdict was not “right.”

The Diallo jurors said the prosecution didn’t give them enough to convict the four officers. Like the softball state prosecution in the Rodney King case, the Diallo prosecutor seemed afraid to vigorously prosecute one (four) of his own. His cross-examination was mild and he didn’t even cross-examine the key defense police expert or call his own expert. In addition to eliminating institutional racism in the police departments, prosecutors must undergo a radical transformation and not be cowed by the fear of prosecuting the police in a meaningful way when they go too far.

MARJORIE COHN

Associate Professor

Thomas Jefferson School of Law

San Diego

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As an American of African descent, I too have seen both sides of this issue. I have been both snared in law enforcement’s racial profiling net as a youth and then as an adult been educated and trained in the police sciences. I too believe, along with Shockley, that the verdict in the Diallo shooting, legally, was the correct one.

Training scenarios, initially in the police academy and continually throughout an officer’s career, are designed to showcase situations similar to this one, placing a mental snapshot in an officer’s mind, with the hope that in moments of high stress the officer will subconsciously go through a mental checklist, removing all doubt about the intent of his potential aggressor. That the officers in the Diallo case were within their legal rights, based on the circumstances of this case, to use deadly force does not remove the responsibility of law enforcement to continually ensure that their zeal in bringing a criminal to justice does not override any man’s right to legally be wherever he may be, and that their tactics are able to stand up under the light of intense scrutiny after the fact.

QUENTIN M. FRAZIER

Azusa

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Shockley suggests that Diallo lost his life because of his wallet. Because Diallo went for his wallet, Shockley reasons, the police officers were justified in fearing for their lives and firing their weapons. Unfortunately, the LAPD Rampart Division scandal has exposed the modus operandi of the corrupt, out-of-control police authority. Officers shoot and then construct the threat after the fact to justify the shooting. It makes me wonder if Diallo ever held his wallet at all. Perhaps we should send Rafael Perez to lecture on detection and prevention of abuse of deadly force in, say, Claremont, Riverside and New York.

RANDALL FREEMAN

Canoga Park