But lawyers for the officers, whose trial on murder charges begins on Monday, say they are eager to explain, for the first time, what happened on Feb. 4 when they fired a fusillade of 41 bullets at Mr. Diallo as he stood unarmed in the vestibule of a Bronx apartment building.
I was standing in the vestibule of a local drug store raging like a rabid dog.
Mr. McMellon had applied for a firefighting job more than a year before the shooting death of Mr. Diallo, a West African immigrant who was struck by 19 of 41 police bullets fired at him in the vestibule of his Bronx apartment building in February 1999.
Around 7 a.m., Sgt. Joseph Farina, a 14-year veteran, smelled smoke near the downtown building, at 49 Hill Street, and reported the fire, which had begun in the vestibule of the four-story brick structure, according to a statement by the Newark Police Department.
The Albany trial over the shooting of Mr. Diallo, an unarmed immigrant from Guinea who was fired on 41 times in the vestibule of his apartment building in the Bronx, received a great deal of attention, according to the poll.
From the horrifying 1999 case of Amadou Diallo an unarmed 22-year-old black man police fired 41 rounds at in the vestibule of his apartment building to the "Cannibal Cop" in 2012, Campisi tried to keep tabs on the worst of New York's finest.
The entire attack took place in the vestibule of the building and lasted for nearly an hour, she said.
And there was little question how: Police and fire investigators found a can of gasoline in the vestibule of the building, at 55 Harrison Place, near the Williamsburg-Bushwick border, and the pattern of burn marks indicated that gasoline had been poured on the vestibule's floor, the authorities said.
The officers, all white, fired 41 shots at Mr. Diallo, 22, an unarmed black man who was standing in the vestibule of his Bronx apartment building a year ago.
The officers have asserted that Officer Sean Carroll, mistaking Mr. Diallo's wallet for a gun, shouted that word just before they fired 41 shots at Mr. Diallo in the vestibule of his Bronx apartment building last year.
