How could Diallo's killers get off scot-free, many are asking. The representatives of the wealthy ruling families worked overtime to ensure an acquittal. They moved the trial to Albany and out of New York City, where repeated protests against police murders have heightened the awareness of millions about the brutal nature of the cops. The prosecution colluded with the defense lawyers in the selection of a jury that excluded a number of Blacks and others who are more prone to have some experience with police violence.

The judge, Joseph Teresi, gave the jury a four-hour lecture, repeating six times the ways they could legally justify acquitting the killers. And the prosecutors, whose normal job is to relentlessly prosecute and frame up working people, did not pursue a vigorous case against the cops and did not challenge the defense on a number of points.

Democratic and Republican politicians alike lauded the trial as a supposed example of fairness. Liberals such as Hillary Rodham Clinton dismissed the gunning down of Diallo as a "tragedy"--not an injustice--and insisted there should be concern for the risks taken by the police. That is the classic justification used by cops to justify their murders.

The Diallo trial verdict is not an example of how the U.S. judicial system does not work. This is how the capitalist "justice" system works. As the judge explained, existing laws and police regulations make it legal for the cops to act as on-the-spot executioners in cases such as this--including when their victims are unarmed, standing in their own apartment building, like Amadou Diallo.

The laws are such because the entire system of cops, courts, and prisons is designed to keep working people in check, while protecting the rule and property of the rich handful. All the various proposals by liberal politicians to reform the police--better training, more cops with black skin, cops who "understand the community"--accept this framework and aim to reinforce the cops. The big-business media and politicians seek to convince the middle class and working people to accept police brutalization as a price for reducing "crime."

After taking some hits over the past few months, the billionaire families and their servants in government are pushing back, as the Diallo trial shows.

Four cops got off the hook. But workers and youth in New York through their response--from street protests to countless individual expressions of outrage--are taking the high ground and making the rulers pay a political price.

The Militant joins with those who continue to mobilize to demand that the cops who killed Amadou Diallo be jailed. We also urge our readers to study two books especially--Capitalism's World Disorder and The Changing Face of U.S. Politics--to gain a deeper understanding of how this capitalist system functions. And how to build a mass working-class movement that can bring about a revolutionary change--one that will put an end to this brutality once and for all by replacing the billionaires' government with workers and farmers in power.  
 
 
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