Opportunists are taking aim at officers in the Diallo slaying

Michael P. Tremoglie

It was the first warm night of the spring, historically a busy night for inner-city police. On such a night, the citizenry's collective pent-up emotions spew forth with an intensity rivaled only when a full moon comes out on a midsummer's night.

I reported for my 4 p.m. to-midnight tour of Philadelphia's 12th Police District. Only a few weeks Out Of the police academy. I had heard about such nights from the veterans. From the moment I reported for duty, I was given one assignment after the next. By dusk, I had already responded to a half-dozen calls - everything from domestic disputes to shoplifting.

While I was completing the paperwork from my latest assignment1 the radio crackled with an urgent announcement: Man with a gun, inside the house. I was nearby, so I responded. So did one of my colleagues.

A crowd had gathered outside the row house, which was elevated from street level, with a meager front lawn, and steps leading to the front door. The back of the house had a short, narrow driveway leading to a small garage. My colleague instructed me to secure the rear of the house. He was going in the front. Since he was senior, I deferred to him.

I went to the back, pressing myself against the doorjamb next to the garage door. People in the crowd were screaming: "He's coming out the back! See him! He's running toward the back!"

The garage extended from the basement. The first floor had a window that opened onto the roof of the garage. To exit the back, the gunman would either come through the garage or the window onto the garage rooftop.

"He's coming out through the window! He's got a gun! He's got a gun!"

I unsnapped my holster and took out my revolver. The pistol-range instructor's words echoed in my memory: "If you have to shoot, shoot for the torso and empty your revolver."

The advice makes sense. Forget this belief that you can shoot a gun from a person's hand. I call it the Lone Ranger Myth. Maybe you could do it if you were an expert marksman with opportunity to aim. Maybe you could do it by accident. Otherwise ...

Aiming at the roof, I placed my finger on the trigger. There was little light. Only enough for a silhouette. If I saw a gun, I was going to fire.

Someone in the crowd shouted: "There he is! He's got a gun!"

I started to press the trigger. Suddenly, through my gun sight, was the horrified expression of a 10-year-old boy. I lowered the revolver.

I do not know the specifics of what happened the night Amadou Diallo was shot and killed. But I doubt it was an execution - as Al Sharpton has said. It wasn't murder, as Hillary Rodham Clinton once claimed and then recanted.

Apparently the racially mixed jury in Albany didn't think it was murder, either. Untainted by the media, uncorrupted by organizations all too willing to exploit the tragedy, they absolved the officers of wrongdoing. But that won't stop leftist opportunists from trying to persecute the officers.

Hillary Clinton and Al Gore have already demonstrated that they genuflect at the altar of Sharpton, the charlatan guilty of libel and slander in the Tawana Brawley case. The Democrats need and want Sharpton's ability to get votes far Clinton and Gore. Sharpton wants publicity.

Leftists are apoplectic in their attempts to explain the Diallo acquittal. Clyde Haberman, in the New York Times, criticizes the jury for not considering why the officers fired a "mind-numbing" 41 shots. Haberman is an adherent of the Lone Ranger Myth. He seemingly fails to understand the significance of the fact that fewer than half of those rounds found their mark. Of those, an even smaller percentage were fatal.

He and many others just do not understand the concept of firepower. The media will do their part to ensure that the acquitted officers go to jail, And for the purpose of getting Clinton and Gore elected, the Justice Department will be sure to prosecute the officers on federal charges.

That's not to say the officers were not culpable. They were, but not in a criminal way. Their superiors have options including suspension, reassignment to clerical duties and termination. But these officers were not guilty of denying anyone his civil rights.

President Clinton has already shown he is not above releasing terrorists from prison for purposes of political pandering. By that standard, imprisoning police officers should come as no surprise. Expect the justice in Albany to be short-lived.

Michael P. Tremoglie, a former Philadelphia police officer, is now a health-care consultant and freelance writer. This piece originally appeared in FrontPagemag.com.

*This article originally published in FrontPageMag.com and The Philadelphia Enquirer.

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Michael P. Tremoglie is a former Philadelphia police officer now a freelance writer working on his first novel. He writes for Front Page Magazine: http://frontpagemag.com/columnists/tremoglie/index.htm.