Results tagged “kadiatoudiallo”

On what would have been his wedding day, Sean Bell's friends and family, as well as other activists, politicians, and members of the community, held a vigil/protest/rally for Bell, Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield. Bell was killed during a confrontation with the police after his bachelor party at the Queens strip club Kalua Lounge on Saturday morning. Guzman and Benefield were injured and remain in the hospital. The police fired 50 shots in less than a half minute on the friends' car; the three men were unarmed. An undercurrent of the shooting is race: The three men were black and Hispanic, while there were two white, two black and one Hispanic police officers.

Two days after Fernando Ferrer said, in front of the Sergeants' Benevolent Association, that he didn't think Amadou Diallo's death was a crime, simply a tragedy, politicians and even Diallo's mother have been weighing in. This is a big deal for mayoral hopeful Ferrer because these words seem to be a a change from 1999, when he protested outside Police Headquarters. Diallo's mother, Kadiatou Diallo, has told the media that she's "very hurt" by Ferrer's remarks, given his past support. Some political consultants say Ferrer didn't shoot himself in the foot but, as Hank Sheinkopf put it, "What voters don't like is inconsistency, and his inconsistency is going to hurt him." Though Ferrer is claiming he has been consistent, Steinkopf added that C. Virginia Fields "should send him flowers."

The NY Times article about the overturned verdict notes that since the shooting was of a Hasidic man, the case did not draw the same kind of outrage as the Amadou Diallo shooting, where a Bronx man was shot 41 times. This remind Gothamist of the film we saw earlier this year, Every Mother's Son. It's a documentary about the mothers of Busch, Diallo and another victim of excessive police force, Anthony Baez. The documentary put a more human face on stories that are splashed across newsprint and worked as both a cautionary tale about police force and a story about strength and healing as the mothers, Doris Busch Boskey, Kadiatou Diallo, and Iris Baez work to fight for their sons' memories and help others. The film, which was recently shown at the Tribeca Film Festival (where it won an audience award) and on PBS's POV, has a great site at PBS; there was an August update about the Busch case - apparently a juror was sleeping through the entire trial, another had ties to the police - and Busch Boskey's push for another trial.