Someone may have thought it was a gun in Diallo's hand. The officers may have thought it was a situation in which they had to kill or perhaps be killed. That is a terrible dilemma to face. This writer's opinion is that the dilemma must be decided in the average citizen's favor, the police officer taking the additional risk to be sure there is just cause to use deadly force. It may be true that in terrible circumstances this could lead to the deaths or woundings of more police men and women.
Police are important to our society.
We need to be able to trust them. We need them to help us in times of trouble. The police officers in this situation were wrong and the New York state's criminal court jury was wrong.