Amadou Diallo:

A Hard Worker With a Gentle Smile

AMY WALDMAN / New York Times 5feb1999

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Amadou Diallo, 22, was killed by police officers yesterday.

The photographs of Amadou Diallo show a slight, smiling man In one picture, he is shirtless, flexing his muscles, in another, he wears sunglasses, and jauntily props up a foot on a stoop. Always, the gentle grin is there

Those pictures, his family friends and neighbors said, captured Mr. Diallo's personality. "To say he was nice is not an exaggeration:' his roommate Momodou Kujabi. said "I would rather it had been me" who was shot, he said "This guy was better than me."

Yesterday, in the hours after Mr. Diallo was killed by police gunfire, Mr. Kujabi and other men from Mr. Diallo's native country, Guinea, gathered outside his apartment building in the Sound-view section of the Bronx to ex-press quiet outrage and make grim preparations to collect his body, have it washed in the Islamic tradition and send it home.

Mr. Diallo, 22, emigrated two and half years ago from Guinea, in West Africa. A member of the Fulani ethnic group, he left the village of Lelouma, where much of his family, including his mother, still lives. She was notified yesterday, relatives said. His father was out of the country and could not be reached.

Mohamed Diallo, the president of the Guinean Association of America, said most Guineans were emigrating because of instability in parts of West Africa. Mr. Diallo, who is not related to Amadou Diallo, said. "A lot of things are happening in Africa, some bad things. Fighting is going on in my country, Sierra Leone, and Guinea Bissau."

Amadou Diallo was thus following a well-worn path, and he quickly landed in a community of Guineans who had settled in and around the Soundview section. First he lived with his uncle, Mamadou Diallo, on Wheeler Avenue. A year ago, he moved down the street to share an apartment with two cousins, Modousalieu Diallo and Abdou Rahman Diallo, and Mr. Kujabi.

Five or six months ago, Modousalieu Diallo moved to Detroit, and he returned yesterday, his face grim, to the cramped apartment stuffed with sofas, a large television, a display case for dishware and a poster of Leonardo DiCaprio.

The three roommates rarely saw each other, because they all worked so many hours, striving to make their way in a new country.

Amadou Diallo, who peddled socks, gloves, videotapes and other goods on 14th Street in Manhattan, usually left each day by noon, and did not return until midnight. "All he did was go to work and come home," said Abdou, his cousin and roommate

Friends and relatives said that Mr. Diallo had no reason to fear the police and that he was in the country legally. They said he was shy and soft-spoken, that his English was good but he spoke slowly, with a stutter

Mamadou Diallo said he thought his nephew also wanted to bring more family members here. "You have a good life here, you need to bring your family," the uncle said. "I know he had that in mind."

When Mr. Diallo was not working, he often sat, alone or with friends, out on his stoop; it made him something of a fixture on the block. Each morning, he greeted Barry Jenkins, a neighbor, with a smile. Mr. Jenkins said he had never learned. the young man's name, yet he was devastated when he learned it was he who had been killed.

"I ain't never seen him bother nobody," Mr. Jenkins, 53, said. Mr. Kujabi described his room-mate as an avid sports fan who loved soccer and basketball, and had recently decided to support the Knicks instead of the Chicago Bulls.

Mr. Diallo, a Muslim, always prayed five times a day, Mr. Kujabi said.

"He's pious," he said. Then he added, "It's just an innocent life taken by mistake, or by will."

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Amadou Diallo:

• Officers in Bronx Fire 41 Shots, And an Unarmed Man Is Killed - New York Times 5feb1999
• 3 of the Officers Were Involved in Shootings in the Last 2 Years - New York Times 5feb1999