Hallway Firefight: The Amadou Diallo Shooting

American Handgunner, Nov, 2000 by Massad Ayoob

Allard emptied five rounds from his 14' Ithaca 12-gauge pump (two rifled slugs, three 00 buckshot), eight rounds from his temporarily-department-approved personal Colt .45 automatic and six rounds from his S&W Model 10 .38 service revolver. The shootout was later determined to have lasted no more than eight seconds.

During this time, Cirillo was firing also. The suspect was on the ground, shielded under the corpse of his large partner, who had been killed by Cirillo's first rifled slug. Cirillo, who attended the autopsy and participated in the shooting, is convinced that only the last two .38 rounds stopped the gunman's attempt to murder him and his partner.

Autopsy Lessons

How could Diallo stay on his feet that long? The ammunition issued to all four officers, which they were required to use by City regulations, was ball. Specifically, 115 gr. Winchester "generic" USA brand FMJ 9mm Parabellum. This sort of round, virtually all experts agree, is extremely poor as a "manstopper." It plows a long, deep, narrow channel through tissue. Its pointy nose has almost no meplat, or flat contact surface, resulting in narrow wound channels which measure less than the bullet's full base diameter.

This has been constantly observed in military battle since World War I. One veteran of that conflict named McBride wrote that in his heavy experience in close quarter trench combat, he only once saw a 9mm Luger stop a fight with "one hit." In that case, he said, he and his comrades had over-run an enemy trench and one had just put a souvenir Luger pistol in a sack. They were suddenly jumped by a German soldier who had been left behind. The Yank swung the sack with the gun and dropped the enemy with a crushing blow to the head.

Recently, the Illinois State Police gave me carte blanche to study their many gunfights with the 9mm pistols they issued from 1967 through 1999. The several years and several shootouts in which they had 9mm ball ammunition showed not a single one-shot stop with this ammunition unless the suspect was hit in the central nervous system.

Was it not negligent for NYPD to issue such bad ammunition? If I was ever subpoenaed and asked that question under oath, I would have to answer, yes. NYPD's own Firearms and Tactics Unit staff had for many years begged the high command for hollowpoints in both .38 and 9mm. Because local politicians had called hollowpoints "dum-dums" and made it a police brutality issue, the quest for better, safer ammo had been stalled.

Ironically, the decision to issue hollowpoints had already been made, but these officers had not yet been issued the P 124 gr. Gold Dot ammunition at the time of the Diallo shooting.

If the cops had carried six-shot .38s instead of 16-shot 9mms, this wouldn't have happened. This was suggested by former NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelley, and by Jim Fyfe, an expert witness for the defense. I disagree, and for that matter, so does the aforementioned Jim Cirillo. I hung out with plainclothes NYPD officers who were doing this job back when they were called the "Anti-Crime Unit." They all carried two .38s, with the backup gun usually where the free hand could reach it. Four cops so armed would still have had 44 to 48 rounds at their disposal before needing to reload.