ntact, but Investigators believe the officers stopped him as he was leaving his house. The officers felt Diallo was acting suspicious and had ducked his head back into the vestibule from which he had just came from. The officers ordered Diallo to freeze. The officers claimed while identifying themselves Diallo didn’t stop and halt. Claiming it was dark and the officer’s thought he was going for a weapon, and feeling threatened and therefore fired upon him 41 times and only hitting him 19 times. Diallo was found later unarmed only carrying a beeper, wallet and his keys when he was killed.During the trial there was speculation that McMellon and Carroll fell backward off the steps after the first string of shots. Defense tried to argue that the falls may have given the officers the impression that they had been hit, triggering the second string of shots (Chronology of the Louima police torture case 1+).The big argument is whether or not; Diallo was already down at any time during the shooting. According to the defense, Diallo never fell during the shooting, only when the shooting stopped. In the autopsy report however, the medical examiner Dr. Joseph Cohen forensic pathologist found result that tell a different story. Three shots were found that would suggest that Diallo was either falling or already down as the officers continued to shoot at him. The bullet going through the front left shin and traveling up the leg from front to rear. Another through the bottom of the foot, and finally one to the right shin, which traveled upward until lodging itself behind the knee. According to Cohen the only way Diallo could have been standing upright when he suffered the wound was if one of the officers was standing directly below him and shooting upward. If Diallo had been standing up the bullet would have traveled horizontally from the shin to the back of the leg, not directly up the leg (Robinson 1).The gunshot wounds had p...
