Sean Carroll and Kenneth Boss embrace after learning that an Albany jury had acquitted them of all charges in Amadou Diallo's shooting. (Court TV)

				DIALLO SHOOTING TRIAL
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NEW YORK (Court TV) — With numerous protesters blasting their verdict over the weekend, jurors in the Amadou Diallo trial say that, based on the evidence and their instructions, they had no choice but to acquit the four NYPD officers who killed the West African street vendor.

"Race was not a factor," said Charise Smith, one of the four African-Americans on the 12-panel jury. "Based on the case before us and the instructions given to us, we had to choice. We were told to see the shooting from the officers' point of view, not Mr. Diallo's. The judge said the to the jury they should put themselves in the shoes of the officers."

Smith was one of the seven jurors interviewed Monday on NBC's "Today." Last Friday, the Albany jury acquitted officers Sean Carroll, Edward McMellon, Kenneth Boss and Richard Murphy of all charges in Diallo's shooting death. Diallo was gunned down in a hail of 41 bullets in the vestibule of his Bronx home last February. The officers said they thought the victim was armed and aiming a gun at them when they opened fire. But, to the officers' horror, Diallo was unarmed, having only a wallet, a beeper and his keys when he was struck 19 times.

Despite telling the presiding judge, Albany Justice Joseph Teresi, that they did not want any contact with the media after the verdict, several of the jurors granted interviews with the local New York tabloids and The Associated Press; seven of them sat down for an interview with "Today." In the "Today" interview, the jurors said that they were "troubled" by the description of Diallo's actions just before the shooting and believed the officers had no choice but to think that Diallo was about to shoot them. Another juror, a white male, told "Today" that he agreed that police officers have a right to use deadly physical force when they believe their lives are in danger.

Jurors had to decide whether the officers were justified in their decision to shoot Diallo. They had to decide what, if anything, Diallo did to make the defendants believe that he was about to fire a weapon at them or flee during a possible robbery attempt. Carroll and McMellon testified that their encounter with Diallo escalated after they identified themselves and the victim refused to heed their command to halt. At the time, the four members of New York's Street Crime Unit were driving an unmarked police car looking for a Bronx serial rapist. As they drove down Wheeler Avenue, Carroll said he thought Diallo was acting suspiciously because he kept looking up and down the block, and repeatedly ducked his head in and out of the vestibule, as if he didn't want to be seen. At that point, Carroll and McMellon decided to approach Diallo.

But, Carroll and McMellon said, when Diallo did not acknowledge them and "darted" into the vestibule, they thought he was trying to flee them. Both officers said they began to run after him. [Carroll said he thought Diallo may have been a lookout for a push-in robbery.] When Diallo began to turn towards the officers and reach for a black object in his right pocket, Carroll said he believed Diallo had a weapon. Carroll said he cried, "Gun!" Gunfire erupted.

McMellon, the defense says, fell off the steps and Boss and Murphy thought he had been hit. When they started shooting, Boss and Murphy told jurors, they believed they were coming to the aid of fellow officers who were under fire.

Juror Ed Powell said the jury believed that the officers thought that their lives were in danger. "If I were to pull something out of my pocket, you couldn't identify that quickly whether it was a gun or a wallet," he said on "Today."

In the "Today" interview, jurors said that they were "troubled" by the description of Amadou Diallo's actions just before the shooting and believed the officers had no choice but to think that Diallo was about to shoot them. (NBC News)

Juror Helen Harder, a 71 year-old white grandmother and wife of a former FBI agent, told both The Daily News and The New York Post that she found the prosecutors' case weak and wondered why they brought second-degree murder charges against the officers in the first place.

"The case that was presented by the prosecutors was very lacking," Harder said. "They didn't have anything to work with. ... The whole thing happened within seconds. Their actions were justified."

"I'm not saying it's a happy verdict," Harder cotinued. "I know the cops are happy. None of the jurors are very happy. But that's the way it worked out."

Harder's frustration with the prosecution's case may be based in part with the failure to cross-examine at least two of the defendants — Boss and Murphy — aggressively. It also reflects the prosecution's failure to present a rebuttal case and to challenge the testimony of police training expert James Fyfe, the final defense witness. Fyfe told jurors that the officers were justified in approaching Diallo because they believed he posed a legitimate threat to the residents of his building. When Diallo, as Fyfe and the defense claims, did not heed a stop command and ran into the vestibule, the officers thought he was trying to flee. At that point, Fyfe testified, it was the officers' duty to try to protect the building's residents and try to keep a potentially dangerous situation from escalating. He believed the officers' actions were consistent with their training and accepted NYPD procedures.

Fyfe's testimony went unchallenged; prosecutors opted not to cross-examine him, a tactic which, perhaps, came back to haunt them.

The jurors' comments came after a weekend of protests over their verdict. Approximately 1000 people gathered outside the United Nations Sunday for a peaceful prayer vigil led by the Rev. Al Sharpton, the Diallo family's adviser. After the vigil, approximately 450 marched down the streets of Manhattan to City Hall to vent their anger and frustration. Despite chanting, "It's a wallet, not a gun!" and calling police monitoring the protests "killers" and "pigs", there was reportedly only one arrest for disorderly conduct.

Rev. Sharpton has called for a boycott of all companies that work with the Police Benevolent Association, which provided for the four officers' defense. Rev. Sharpton and State Rep. Charles Rangel have said they will go to Washington, D.C. Tuesday and ask the U.S. Department to intervene and file federal civil rights charges against Officers Carroll, McMellon, Boss and Murphy. Diallo's family also plans to file a civil suit against the officers, the NYPD, and New York City.

— Bryan Robinson