Fast-Paced Diallo Trial Has Not Been Kind to Defense

The fact-paced trial of four New York City police officers accused of murdering Amadou Diallo is moving into its third week, and the lawyers representing the officers are scrambling to shore up their defense. "This trial is moving like a freight train," says TIME correspondent Jack White. That's not good news for the defendants, whose case was damaged Wednesday by a defense witness who suddenly turned hostile.

Shrrie Elliot, one of Diallo's neighbors, was walking home past Diallo's apartment on the night of the shooting and says she saw the four plainclothes officers climb out of their car, guns drawn, and surround Diallo's entryway. Defense lawyers had hoped that Elliot, an unwilling witness, would provide a key piece of information and leave it at that. She obliged to a certain extent, saying she heard someone yell "Gun!" before the shooting began. That cry, the defense team contends, is evidence the police saw Diallo as a threat and were justified in firing on the unarmed 22-year-old.

As Elliot's testimony continued, however, it became clear she wasn't doing the defense much good; she insists she couldn't tell who hollered "Gun!" and conceded on cross-examination that it could have been Diallo, despite previous declarations that it was one of the officers. Elliot also testified the officers shot at Diallo long after he'd fallen down, contradicting comments she made a year ago on WNBC, when she told an interviewer she "couldn't believe how long [Diallo] stayed up." Elliot, now considered a hostile witness by the defense, will face cross-examination next week, and a videotape of Elliot's television interview will be shown after extraneous (and possibly influential) information is edited out.

While Elliot's apparent inconsistencies may eventually nullify the legal effect of her testimony, it's hard to overestimate the emotional impact her tearful testimony may have on jurors, says White. "Up to this point, the testimony had been pretty dry." And although Elliot is admittedly unclear as to who yelled "Gun!" it may not matter in the long run. " There are two questions at the heart of this case," says White. "Did the police officers warn Diallo before they started shooting him, and did they keep shooting him after he'd gone down?" Even assuming the police did shout out before spraying Diallo with 41 bullets, screaming "Gun!" at someone with your gun already drawn doesn't constitute much of a warning. Various prosecution witnesses have diagrammed the entry and exit points for each of the 19 bullets that hit Diallo, and each of the prosecution's "earwitnesses" included pauses when they rapped out tattoos imitating the gunshots on the witness stand, indicating the officers did pause in the middle of shooting.

The four police officers are scheduled to take the stand next week; each is charged with two counts of second-degree murder and one count of reckless endangerment. Everything hinges on their testimony, says White. "The verdict will depend on the story they tell," he says. "They'll have to explain to the jury why they stopped Diallo, why they felt threatened, why they continued to shoot as much as they did, and whether they stopped when he was down. They're going to have to tell a tale the jury can hook on to." As they gear up for the moment of truth, the officers are in a unique position to defend themselves, says White; police, as a group, are both more vilified and more admired than the average defendant. And although the jury was carefully screened to eliminate people with strong feelings toward the police, the next phase of testimony could easily elicit subconscious prejudices — and sympathies.