Netflix’s Trial by Media: Amadou Diallo

Netflix released its new crime docuseries, Trial by Media, examining some of the most dramatic trials and how the media impacted verdicts.

Amadou Diallo moved to the Bronx, New York from Guinea in West Africa to go to college and get an education, with plans to return home to help his family. Unfortunately, his life ended abruptly in 1999 when four NYPD police officers shot him FORTY-ONE TIMES while he stood in the doorway of his OWN apartment building.

Unarmed and unproblematic.

For Amadou, the media popularity of his murder resulted in his trial being moved to a conservative and biased community in Albany, NY.  Amidst protests by the Black, minority, and progressive communities, a judge ruled that no jury in NYC would be able to analyze the case in an unbiased manner. 

The result? A jury in Albany found all four police officers NOT GUILTY, once again demonstrating that an unarmed, innocent Black man’s life has no real value. 

Moving this case to Albany, NY was just another example of the judicial system gaslighting the public, all while secretly using institutional racism to protect corrupt police officers. 

Amadou’s name has been a part of our #BlackLivesMatter movement for years now, but revisiting his murder and the all too common narrative of not guilty verdicts in straight-forward murder cases  will never not trigger grief and sadness. To see civil rights activists like Rev. Al Sharpton and Rev. Jessie Jackson have the same conversations, protests, and speeches in the 1980s and 1990s that we are having today, would temporarily make anyone feel hopeless. 

That moment of hopelessness is just intergenerational trauma pulling up to remind us to continue fighting so that our children don’t have to feel that way.

Never forget Amadou Diallo. Never forget that police brutality is nothing new. And never stop fighting until racial and social equality is won.