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Kadiatou Diallo, the mother of Amadou Diallo remains frustrated that police brutality is still taking innocent, unarmed Black lives. In an interview with CNN on Monday, Diallo shared her honest revelations on the lack of progress: “I have met all these victims, comforted those mothers, but however, what is going on here is like many years ago. We’re going backwards, so each time I relive my tragedy.” Her son Amadou was a victim of wanton police force in sixteen years ago when he was front of Soundview apartments, where he lived in the Bronx, four White cops shot him with 41 bullets because they mistook him for a rapist on the run.

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Amadou’s passing caused outrage as the killing cops were shockingly acquitted in 2000. Everything about his death was echoed this year through the similar cases of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice and so many others. Saddened that with every grand protest or march, America had seemingly given up after awhile, Diallo is urging for real change. “It seems like we just move on and put everything under the rug and pretend like nothing is happening.” She added, “We can come together not only to protest, not only to march, but for something positive so we don’t have this happen again. We’ve been through this so much.”

Most recently, Diallo was a speaker at an August rally for Garner and she spoke to a devastated crowd: “It is not a Black and White. We are not against the police, the NYPD or the police nationwide. It is about wrong. We have to stop this. Too many tears. Too many victims.”

Since the death of her son, Kadiatou become more actively involved in preventing racial violence. She is the founder of the Amadou Diallo Foundation, speaks on behalf of Guinean Democracy, is a regular guest and lecturer at women’s and African forums and co-wrote the book My Heart Will Cross This Ocean: My Story, My Son, Amadou. In 2004, she was in talks with the City of New York for a settlement of $3 million after she filed a civil suit.

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