Amadou Diallo:

3 of the Officers Were Involved in
Shootings in the Last 2 Years 

KIT R. ROANE / New York Times 5feb1999

[More on Amadou Diallo]

Three of the four plainclothes officers who shot a Bronx man to death early yesterday had been involved in other shootings, one of which is still under investigation, the police said.

All four officers — Edward McMellon, 26, Sean Carroll, 35, Kenneth Boss, 27, and Richard Murphy, 26 — have been placed on administrative duty, a standard department procedure, while the police investigate the shooting of Amadou Diallo, 22, in the vestibule of his Soundview apartment building. The officers, all assigned to the Bronx Street Crimes Unit, an elite and often dangerous assignment, had been looking for a suspect in a series of rapes, the police said. It remained unclear last night why the officers shot at Mr Diallo, who died in a fusillade of 41 bullets.

Officer Boss, who has been on the police force for seven years, is under investigation in the October 1997 fatal shooting of a man who the police said was menacing people with a shotgun in front of an apartment building on Sheffield Avenue in East New York, Brooklyn.

According to the police, Officer Boss shot the man, Pat Baily, after Mr. Bally fled into a nearby apartment building. Although it remains unclear whether Mr. Bally was holding a weapon when he was shot, a shotgun was found next to his body, the police said. Mr. Baily died of his injuries at Brookdale Hospital Medical Center.

The shooting is under investigation by the Brooklyn District Attorney's office, which is trying to "determine whether there are issues that need to be resolved by a grand jury," said Patrick B Clark, the spokesman for the office.

Officer McMellon, a five-year police veteran, was cleared after shooting and wounding a man in Fast New York, Brooklyn, last June. The police said the man had a loaded 9-millimeter handgun.

Officer Carroll, who has also been on the force for five years, was found to have been justified in firing his gun last August on Wilson Avenue in the Bronx. He said that he had fired at a suspect after hearing a bullet pass over his head. Neither a suspect nor any weapons were recovered.

Officer Murphy, like more than 90 percent of all officers on the force, has not been involved in any shootings. In his four years as a police officer, he has never had a complaint against him lodged with the Civilian Complaint Review Board.

Officer McMellon has received five complaints, while Officers Boss and Carroll each have received three, said a law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The official said that none of the complaints, which ranged from accusations of excessive force to abuse of authority and racial insensitivity, had been substantiated.

Officer Carroll was the only one of the group to have two years experience in the Street Crimes unit, whose members are often asked to search out crimes in progress and to get guns off the street.

Since they joined the unit in October, Officer Murphy has made eight felony arrests, seven of them for gun possession, and Officer Boss has made five gun-possession arrests, one for auto theft and one for narcotics possession.

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Amadou Diallo:

• Officers in Bronx Fire 41 Shots, And an Unarmed Man Is Killed - New York Times 5feb1999
• A Hard Worker With a Gentle Smile - New York Times 5feb1999