41 Shotsand Counting What Amadou Diallos Story Teaches Us About Policing Race And Justice Beth Roy by Beth Roy instant download after payment.

I began exploring the many meanings attached to Amadou Diallo’s death in winter of 2000. A year before, the young Guinean immigrant had been killed by four officers of the New York Police Department. I was moved to begin my project the day the news was announced that the police officers responsible had been acquitted of murder charges. Writing histories of current events is a chancy enterprise. History, by definition, is an ongoing narrative, and sometimes the speed at which it goes on is disorienting. Much of what I was investigating was how ordinary Americans perceived and interpreted the actions of the four officers who fired the forty-one shots that killed Diallo. To some people, those officers were simply human guys doing a thankless job. Maybe they made mistakes, maybe they were set up to make mistakes by the politics of their city and times. To others, however, especially to many people of color who daily encounter demeaning and frightening confrontations with members of the New York police force, the “men in blue” were dangerous predators. “As an African American living in this neighborhood,” said one lifelong resident of the Bronx, “I feel like the law, law enforcement officers are the greatest threat to my life.”