Yesterday, Detective Bryan Conroy was convicted of criminally negligent homicide by State Supreme Court Justice Robert Strauss, who heard the case for 10 days without a jury, and acquitted officer Conroy of manslaughter charges.
The cop, convicted by a judge because the first trial ended in a hung jury, killed a man he claims tried to wrestle the service pistol from him.
Here's what happened; Detective Bryon Conroy was dressed as a mailman while guarding a stash of DVD's and CD's on the 3rd floor of a Manhattan warehouse. Ousmane Zongo...who was working in the building but had no connection with the sting the police were running... approached him, and for some unknown reason...the prosecution speculated he may have thought that Detective Conroy was an immigration official, or simply a deranged mailman with a gun...not only failed to halt when confronted by the armed officer, but made an unsuccessful grab at Conroy's gun. Conroy fended him off and Zongo turned and ran. The officer followed, Zongo stopped and once again made a lunge for the gun and this is when Conroy fired, striking him 4 times.
Zongo died of his injuries several hours later and the prosecutors office took the case to a Grand Jury that indicted the officer.
Part of the damning testimony that apparently swayed the judge, was given by attending emergency room physician Dr. Nancy Kwon, who examined Conroy on the evening of the shooting. She testified that she did not find evidence that Conroy had been in a life and death struggle for his gun, and the fact that he wasn't physically injured was stressed by the prosecution which had all along been claiming that deadly physical force was unnecessary in this case, and that Conroy had killed a man for little more than running away from him.
The fact that Zongo twice tried to wrest the gun from Conroy was dismissed as being insufficient grounds for Conroy to shoot, and here is where uber-liberal NY law, and uber-liberal judges are more than willing to convict a white policeman for shooting an unarmed black man.
Draw your gun on a member of a minority group and if the ACLU hears about it, and chances are they will,then you're going to be investigated regardless of the circumstances.
Details the newspapers won't mention, but are germane to the case: Detective Conroy stands about 6'4" tall and weighs approximately 270lbs, and while I can find no reference to the size of Mr. Zongo, it's clear that the prosecution never believed that Conroy was in any danger and acted recklessly.
Now, from the very beginning, this case was a first, as the prosecution wanted to treat Conroy as "the initial aggressor", meaning his status as a police officer was not to be taken into consideration because he acted in an unsafe manner and indeed initiated what turned into a lethal confrontation.
"I mean, the man just tried to take my gun away from me," Conroy testified, according to the court records. "I wanted to stop [Zongo], place him in custody and find out what was going on."
But here's the uber-liberal rub again; the District Attorney's office said that since there was no reason to believe that Zongo committed a crime, there was no reason to confront him to begin with, and certainly no reason to chase, then shoot him. In other words, if a cop stops you in an area where known criminal activity is going on, if you are innocent you do not have to heed his instructions and may indeed flee and/or try to take his gun away.
Also from the beginning this story was one of those tales that you could tell was not going to have a happy ending for anyone. A man was dead, his grieiving widow flown in from Africa to fan the flames of hatred for police for shooting an unarmed black man, and she was quite happy...through an interpreter...to condemn Conroy as "looking arrogant" throughout the proceedings.
Conroy faces up to four years in prison when he is sentenced on Dec. 2. The judge also has the option of sentencing him to probation.
Some cops are trigger, or brutal force happy, this is a given, but it is ludicrous to assert that the officer did not have the jurisdiction to stop someone entering an area where known criminal activity was taking place. Did the cop threaten and bluster and do all of that screaming and yelling and threatening that we see on "Cops"? Something scared an innocent man into fleeing, but let's face it, if he was afraid it was immigration coming to get him it certainly looks like he was here illegally, but still no reason to kill him.
The man leaped at an officer of the law, tried to take his gun, ran, then did it again when cornered. In some states an officer is justified in shooting if you run from him, but not in NY. In some states an officer is justified in shooting if you wrestle with him, but not in NY. In some states an officer is justified in shooting if you grab his gun, but, you guessed it, not in NY.
Here in Florida, if you believe yourself to be in danger you may use deadly force to prevent it. As a civilian, and not that police should have MORE rights than you or me, but going for the man's gun was in my mind justification enough to repel him with all means available.
What should the cop have done? Run? This isn't France, not yet at least.
Since the PBA is picking up the attorney fees look for this one to go as high as the Supreme Court, and for a lot of reasons but chief among them the fact that Conroy was tried and convicted as a civilian, and not as a duly sworn police officer, on duty, and in an area where multiple felonies had taken place.
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