 Militant/Brian Williams |  |
| Above, a new mural in the Bronx, New York, in memory of Amadou Diallo, who was gunned down by four police officers in February 1999. The painting, unveiled April 24, is located a few doors away from where Diallo was killed. It depicts cops in Ku Klux Klan hoods, the U.S. flag in flames, a skeletal Statue of Liberty holding aloft a pistol with a pile of skulls at its feet, alongside a portrait of Diallo, under the heading "The American Dream."
Four days later Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik announced that the four cops--acquitted last year in a criminal trial--will not face disciplinary action. "This has sent a signal that a Black child's life has no meaning," said the slain man's mother, Kadiatou Diallo. Cops reacted with hostility to the 20 by 35 foot mural, pressuring the property owner to have parts of it removed. After someone painted over the depiction of the cops several days later, the artist, Hulbert Waldroup, 33, restored their images. "Thugs may come and whitewash my mural in the night," he said, "but they cannot whitewash the memory of what happened here." Onlookers gave him donations toward the cost of the paint as he worked. The mural has become a gathering place in the neighborhood. also above, resident uses photographs and diagram to show path of 41 bullets fired by the cops at Diallo. | |