Social Cognition

Late on the evening of February 3, 1999, Amadou Diallo, an immigrant from West Africa, took in the night air on the steps his apartment building in the South Bronx. In what was soon to become a fateful encounter, four undercover police officers on patrol, in an unmarked Ford Taurus, turned down Diallo's street. One of the officers noticed Diallo and thought that he looked like sketches of a man who had committed rapes in that area about a year earlier. The officers got out of their car and ordered Diallo to stop as he entered the vestibule of his apartment building. In fact, Diallo had no criminal record. He was working long hours as a street vendor and in his spare time was earning high school credits so that he could go to college. When the police approached Diallo, he reached for his wallet. probably so that he would show some identification. Alarmed by the sight of a black man reaching into his pocket, the four officers did not hesitate. They fired a total of forty-one shots at Diallo, killing him instantly.

Unfortunately, incidents such as this one are not rare. On the night of April 6, 2001, a Cincinnati police officer chased Timothy Thomas into an alley, and demanded that he show him his hands. Before Thomas had a chance to comply, the officer shot and killed him. Thomas was unarmed.

*Source: Social Psychology by Aronson, Wilson, Akert*