|
NYC 2/5/99
West African Street Vendor Dies in
Hail of Police Bullets As Vendors Prepare City Hall
Demonstration
On Thursday morning four police officers shot to death an unarmed West African
street vendor, Amadou Diallo, as he stood in the vestibule of the apartment
building where he lives in the Bronx. Diallo was unarmed, had no police record
and had just returned home from vending on the street. The police fired at least
41 shots hitting Diallo 22 times. His name joins a growing list of unarmed young
black males shot to death by the NYPD.
Diallo, like many West African New Yorkers worked 12 hours a day as a street
vendor, selling socks, gloves and videos on Manhattan’s 14th Street. Like many
other hard working immigrant vendors he sent much of the money he earned on
the street back home to his parents, who live in Guinea, West Africa. Newspaper
accounts describe the 22 year old Diallo as a shy, hardworking and very likable
young man.
Street vendors have long been a prime target of the Giuliani administration.
Being approached by plainclothes cops pressured to meet their quota of vendor
arrests, issue piles of summonses and confiscate merchandise is a daily experience
for vendors. Being a young black male only increased the odds of Diallo recieving
police attention.
This needless tragedy comes at the same time the Giuliani administration is
gearing up for a fierce campaign to eliminate street vendors. On January 21st
the Mayor’s Street Vendor Review Panel announced the arbitrary closing of an
additional 100 streets to artists, food, book and general merchandise vendors
[see NY Times January 23, 1999 ”Compromise Plan on Vendors Is Approved”]. Behind
the new restrictions are the City’s wealthiest and most powerful Business Improvement
Districts. Motivating them is an intense desire to rid the City’s streets of
honest, hard working people just like Amadou Diallo.
Later this month the City Council is expected to vote on a new vending bill,
intro #110, featuring a Warrant system which assigns franchised vending locations
to vendors for a one year period based on competitive bidding. An identical
system is already in place in all New York City parks. A single vending spot
to sell hotdogs or tee shirts in a park can presently bid out for more than
$500,000. The warrant system is specifically designed to take vending away from
hard-working immigrant vendors like Amadou Diallo and turn it over to corporations
like Disney, McDonalds and the City’s Business Improvement Districts all of
which have been lobbying the Mayor and the City Council in this regard. The
same Business Improvement Districts responsible for the street closings wrote
the new vending law.
Vendors from every part of the City will hold an anti-Giuliani rally at 12
noon on Wednesday February 10 outside City Hall to protest the street closings,
the proposed new vending law and now, the death of Amadou Diallo. Like Amadou
Diallo most of the City’s vendors are immigrants, most are minorities and many
are black. The violent death of Amadou Diallo will only serve to heighten the
anxiety and fear New York City’s vendors are experiencing as they prepare for
the day when Giuliani’s quality of life police state come for them.
Robert Lederman, President of A.R.T.I.S.T.
(Artists’ Response To Illegal State Tactics)
255 13th Street
Brooklyn, N.Y. 11215
(718) 369-2111
e mail ARTISTpres@aol.com
For extensive information on the vending issue, intro #110 and this demo go
to:
http://www.openair.org/alerts/artist/nyc.html
|
