http://p2pnet.net/story/3563
Sunday 16th January 2005

The post refers to an Associated Press story quoted in the Asheville Global Report, and runs:

“An unarmed immigrant from the African nation of Burkina Faso was shot and killed on May 22 by a plainclothes police officer guarding counterfeit merchandise down the hall. Ousmane Zango, 43, was shot four times after a chase through the hallway of a Chelsea storage facility where he repaired sculptures and drums to send money home to his family in Africa.

“Police officers has just raided two rooms while investigating a compact disk counterfeiting operation. It is unclear why the officer began to chase Zango, who had no connection to the counterfeiting operation. The officer said Zango tried to take his gun and described pushing and shoving between them. The department’s internal affairs bureau is investigating.

“The shooting brought back memories of the death of African immigrant Amadou Diallo, who was shot and killed by four white officers who said they mistook his wallet for a gun. The officers were cleared of murder and other charges in a state criminal trial in 2000, which inflamed racial tensions in New York.

“The shooting also comes a week after police mistakenly raided the apartment of a 57-year-old Harlem woman who went into cardiac arrest and died after officers detonated a flash grenade and handcuffed her. A police informant had wrongly identified Alberta Spruill’s apartment as one used by a drug dealer.”

Zango was a repairman who worked on art objects, says IndieMedia, adding that he lived in Harlem and had no criminal record.

Were the NY cops acting on information supplied by the Big Music cartel's RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) which routinely uses US national and state police as tax-payer funded record label enforcers?

And can the same question be asked of the Malaysian 'bust,' with IFPI substituted for RIAA?

http://p2pnet.net/story/3551

Here's the link to the other story.

Next you'll see agents bust in your house with ball caps bearing the RIAA logo and in full riot gear then they'll go upstairs and shoot little billy dead because he just downloaded the latest ashlee simpson song. So for what would seemingly be the innocent act of a child he winds up dead and with a crappy song on his computer
where is this world going

downloading an mp3 and ending up with an ashlee simpson song should be punishment enough instead of putting fake files out on p2p with high pitched white noise they should just put out ashlee simpson loops that would solve their "problem" in an instant

/end incoherent babbling

Just the more reason to boycott the RIAA.

Personally, I think that the police officer isn't telling the truth. He said he tried to take his gun, while they were pushing and shoving each other. I highly doubt this, since counterfeitting (sp?) isn't that serious of a crime that somebody would rather kill than go to jail.

“The shooting brought back memories of the death of African immigrant Amadou Diallo"

Interesting. The last time we started to discuss Ousmane Zango's death by RIAA, someone managed to derail the post by confusing the two issues and declaring it to be old news that was in all the papers.

The police officer was off-duty, in the employ of the RIAA at the time of the killing.

This happened in May, 2003.

I spent a couple of hours searching for that article, but never did find it.

"The officer said Zango tried to take his gun"

Sounds fine to me. This guy's a criminal, and if the officer is telling the truth, he should have shot him. He could be lying, but that's just speculation (very uninformed speculation) as far as I know.

Sherm, the article said that Zango was a sculpture repairman who had no connection to the operation they were busting. He just happened to keep his stuff in the same storage facility as the criminals. He was an innocent man with no criminal record.

How would you like to stop by your storage facility to pick up an old chair and get chased, attacked and shot by someone in plainclothes who speaks a language you don't understand? He probably didn't know the guy was a cop.

Reread the article a little more closely.

It sounds to me like the cop was overzealous and trigger-happy. He had to know that there were innocent people also keeping stuff in storage there. He just spotted someone who fit a racial profile and decided to shoot first and ask questions later (or in this case, cover it up with a phony story about a struggle for his gun.) What cop is going to approach an unarmed man in such a way as to allow him to grab for his gun?

The off-duty cop's assignment for the RIAA was to protect a stash of counterfeit CDs and other contents from a raid conducted earlier.

1) By chasing this guy down, the cop had to abandon his post.
2) How far, exactly, did this armed cop chase Zango?
3) How far, exactly, would YOU run from someone with a gun who is yelling at you in a language you don't understand before you turn around and take the offensive in defense?

"Reread the article a little more closely."

What the crap - after I typed out my response, I read it again just because I wanted to make sure I didn't miss anything.

Just had to read the beginning two more times. Apparently I'm spacier than I thought. Oh well.. thank you. I'm an idiot.

Ah, we all get like that sometimes, Sherm. Just keepin' ya on yer toes.