I did this cartoon for the Village Voice back when the Village Voice was a real newspaper (in other words, it ran a lot of good cartoons). It concerns the dismal death of Amadou Diallo, killed by New York City police for the crime of standing in front of his own apartment building in the Bronx. Cops claimed that he told his, er, wallet on them.
Needless to say, as usual, justice was not served. He was black. Unfortunately, this cartoon remains timely.
6 Comments.
WTF????”
“Cops claimed that he told his, er, wallet on them.”
You mean “pulled”?
Here’s what I’ve read about the incident: “A pager and a wallet were found lying next to the body, a police official said, adding that it was unclear whether the officers could have mistaken the pager for a weapon.”
I can tell you’re a teacher, I didn’t even notice that typo.
I think Ted uses voice whatever-the-hell it’s called. It probably recognized his pronunciation of “pulled” as “told” and he didn’t notice. 🙂
It took me a while to “get” this cartoon. I kept trying to make a narrative out of it, rather than reading it as six different alternative universes.
There are still cops who are devastated when they shoot someone, we need more of them. Something tells me that the kind of cops who would fire 41 shots into a human being without seeing any actual threat don’t feel much remorse afterwards.
41 shots? Seriously? Did they stop to reload or what?
The article I read said there were 4 cops, each of whom had 16-round magazines in their 9mm semi-automatic pistols. Two of them emptied the magazines, one other fired five rounds and the fourth fired four rounds. (16 + 16 + 5 + 4 = 41.) 🙁
I misremember a John Wayne quote about revolvers, something to the effect of, “If you can’t finish your business in five shots, the sixth isn’t going to help you”
But 15+1 ? Criminy sakes alive.