SIGNS OF HOPE IN THE BRONX NEIGHBORHOOD WHERE DIALLO DIED

It has been three years since Amadou Diallo was killed by the police in an
extraordinary standoff in an ordinary doorway in the Soundview section of
the Bronx.

The neighborhood has seen some changes. Police commanders now routinely
attend community meetings. Two officers now patrol its streets full time to
strengthen ties with residents and local youths.

The Police Department, too, has seen some changes. The Street Crime Unit,
responsible for Mr. Diallo's death, has cut the number of its officers in
the Bronx. Narcotics teams embarking on undercover work across the city now
get five days of tactical training, instead of only three.

The changes — some in words, some in deeds; some substantial, some fairly
modest — have been enough that many community leaders now talk of a quiet
revolution in Soundview. It is a turnabout created not by fists and furious
sloganeering, they say, but by patience, cooperation and the power of the
spoken word.

"There is a change and a noticeable change," said Francisco Gonzalez,
president of Community Board 9, which encompasses Soundview. "The lines of
communication after Diallo have become vibrant."

While community leaders speak of a new partnership, the regular people of
Soundview have a much more nuanced view.

Some say the police still stop black men and treat them roughly. Some say
the police have developed a newfound respect for people on the streets.
Some say they have never been approached at night by officers jumping from
unmarked cars. Some say that, even now, they cannot sit on their own front
stoops without being rousted by the police.

Nevertheless, two days spent in Soundview, talking with people in pet
stores, barber shops and burger joints, did reveal that the rage that was
once directed at the police has diminished considerably from just a couple
of years ago.

Soundview was in shock after Mr. Diallo, a West African immigrant from
Guinea, was killed by four undercover officers from the Street Crime Unit
in the doorway of his apartment building at 1157 Wheeler Avenue on Feb. 4,
1999. It was shocked again a year later when each of the officers involved
was cleared of murder charges, even though 41 shots had been fired at Mr.
Diallo, who was unarmed.

This month, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said it was less likely that a
shooting like that could occur these days, given the changes he says he has
seen in police training and community relations. His remarks immediately
formed another chapter in the debate about how much the Police Department
has actually changed.

Msgr. Charles Kavanagh is a founding member of the Bronx Clergy Task Force,
which was formed in the wake of the Diallo case. He said last week that he
was overjoyed by the way local residents and the police have managed to set
the past aside.

"From our position, we are very encouraged by the constant communication
and openness by the Police Department during the last three years,"
Monsignor Kavanagh said. "We were delighted with their involvement with us.
Like anything else, it took time to effect change, but there was never any
unwillingness by the police to get involved."

Ruben Diaz Jr., the state assemblyman who represents Soundview, also
acknowledged that things in the neighborhood have improved. Even so, while
praising the improvements, Mr. Diaz said things like, "There have been
changes, you can't deny that" and "There's a new, I hate to say it, respect
among officers" — verbal hedges that seemed to capture a lingering
reticence that people feel toward the police.

Mr. Diaz, for one, cited a pair of changes that he felt had made a
difference: the staff reductions in the Street Crime Unit and the community
outreach programs implemented by commanders in the local 43rd Precinct.
Still, he said, additional changes were needed: an independent Civilian
Complaint Review Board, a residency requirement for the police, and added
authority for the state attorney general's office to investigate police
brutality cases.

The view from the streets is sometimes different. Jeymi Santana, 32, is a
hotel housekeeper who was getting a haircut in a barber shop on Evergreen
Avenue last week. He said he was absolutely certain that another
Diallo-style killing would occur. It was only a question of when.

"It's going to happen again because they got away with it the first time,"
he said. "Nobody got convicted, and all that talk about changing tactics —
it's just for show."

What was unusual about Mr. Santana's remarks was not their ironclad
certainty, but the calmness with which they were delivered. A moment later,
he switched gears and said: "Things are little more tranquil now because of
9/11. There's not the same animosity in the neighborhood toward the cops."

Even people who expressed extreme cynicism about police officers — men like
Jimmy Rosario, 28, who was waiting in a dentist's office on Westchester
Avenue — admitted that the police were bathed in a sort of glow after the
World Trade Center attack, in which many officers acted heroically and 23
city police officers died.

"The cops have a better profile now; they don't stick out as much," he
said. "But I think it's been the same in terms of their relations with the
public. They may be heroes now, but that don't mean that we get extra smiles."

In a pet shop up the avenue, Jose Robledo, a 19-year-old stock clerk, said
he was still harassed by the police. "You can't be in front of your
building, or in your lobby, even if you show ID that you live there," he
said. "To me, it's still the same old thing."

When asked whether the police had made his neighborhood feel safer,
however, Mr. Robledo and another worker at the store, Eddie Fradera, 25,
agreed that the officers had, in fact, made a difference.

"There's still a lot of problems out there — fighting, drugs," Mr. Fradera
said. "And like eight or nine cop cars always show up. They break up the
skirmishes, and they get here faster than used to."

Soundview has long been populated by the black and Latino working class,
although in recent years, many Arab and African immigrants have started
moving in. Many of these newcomers, who missed the original eruption of the
Diallo case, said they had a good relationship with the police.

Waly Sene, 22, arrived in Soundview from Senegal a year ago and knew from
watching television in Africa that he was moving into Mr. Diallo's old
neighborhood. The police "are around all the time, but I am not afraid of
them," he said. "I hear stories of black people having problems with the
cops, but not me. I have never been stopped or even asked questions."

In fact, the number of complaints filed against the police in Soundview has
not changed much over the last few years, except for an unusually high
number filed in 1999 — the year that Mr. Diallo was killed. According to
the Civilian Complaint Review Board, there were 48 complaints filed against
the 43rd Precinct in 1997; 43 filed in 1998; 70 in 1999; 42 in 2000; and 47
last year.

At the same time, summonses written by officers across the city have
dropped significantly, a trend that may make people feel that the police
have become a little friendlier. The number of parking tickets issued fell
by nearly 15 percent last year compared with 2000, police records show. The
number of moving violations dropped by more than 11 percent in the same
time, according to the records.

The police attribute the changing attitude in Soundview to a host of
causes: life after Sept. 11; the fact that Rudolph W. Giuliani, a staunch
supporter of the police, is no longer in office; the appointment of Raymond
W. Kelly as police commissioner; and nut-and-bolts changes in police
practice like opening a new training center in the Bronx that includes a
mock city neighborhood complete with streets and buildings.

For Assistant Chief Patrick Timlin, the police commander in the Bronx, the
biggest factor has been communication. He told the story of attending a
memorial of Mr. Diallo's death last year to prove his point.

Chief Timlin went to the event on the invitation of Assemblyman Diaz and
said he felt somewhat uncomfortable at first. Some people thanked him for
coming, others remained suspicious, he said, but in the end his attendance
was a success: "It demonstrated that you are not only open to
communication, but also to criticism."

Darryl Collins would like to believe the tensions could be wiped away by
better public relations, but he is reserving judgment. Mr. Collins, a 24-
year-old black man, who was coming out of the Burger Hut restaurant last
week, said: "Talk is cheap; action is money. We'll know what people really
think when it happens next