Electric Bullet

Inspired By Tragedy

Dreams presaged Amadou Diallo's death. His brother dreamt of grabbing a hand outstretched for help. His grandmother dreamt of a cow that couldn't feed its calf. His mother dreamt in slow motion that she could feel Amadou even though he was in New York and she in Guinea, Africa.

"I felt him, I felt him, I felt him," Kadiatou Diallo, Amadou's mother, says of a sleep filled with sensations she had shortly before he died. "And I said to myself, 'I miss him. I want to see my son.'"

By the time she booked a flight, Amadou's body had absorbed 41 shots discharged by four New York City policemen who fired at an unarmed Diallo even as the velocity of the bullets spun him in an eerie dervish.

As often as they horrify, such deaths inspire. The circumstances surrounding Diallo's 1999 demise were an odd combination of mortification and inspiration: a shocked mother became an activist, an appalled rock star penned a tribute to him, and an idea took life for inventor John LeBourgeois, who created a bullet that he told Discover Magazine he hopes will prevent such tragedies from recurring.

"I was reading the New York Times, the story of Amadou Diallo," recalls LeBourgeois. "I said there had to be a better way to resolve those problems."

The bullet is constructed of piezoelectric material, used in car starters and stove or cigarette lighters, where a spark ignites gas. "We've taken a larger piece of that material and encapsulated it in a bullet," LeBourgeois explains. On impact, it discharges from a live round of ammunition and has the capacity to be lethal.

Why the need for such technology? Standard police training teaches officers to shoot advancing suspects armed with edged weapons within 21 feet, something called the Tueller Rule. Police shoot until a suspect drops. Diallo didn't, probably because the velocity of the bullets kept him spinning, LeBourgeois theorizes. An electric bullet would have sent a charge through his body equal to 100 to 125 percent the strength of an external heart defibrillator, dropping him immediately, he says.

"Fixing one or two holes in him would've been much easier for the doctors to do than something where every organ has been hit," Le Bourgeois says.

But a similar technology?the Taser gun?was the subject of a CBS news report that showed some 40 individuals have died after being stunned with 50,000 volts of electricity that course through the Taser's 21-foot long wires.

Steve Tuttle, Taser International spokesman, said that the gun has been cleared in all but three of those deaths, where it was listed as "contributing to the cause of death." Several independent medical examiners hired by the company have since found fault with the findings regarding those three deaths, he says.

The weapon saves lives, Tuttle insists. Over 40,000 police departments use it, including Arizona's Phoenix Police Department. It credits Taser with a drop in police-involved shootings, which fell from 28 in 2002 to 13 in 2003, a 54 percent decrease, and fatal police shootings, which decreased by four, from 13 in 2002 to 9 in 2003, a drop of 31 percent.

Mount Sinai School of Medicine cardiac electrophysiologist Davendra Mehta stresses that indiscriminate shocks can kill. Five percent of the time the heart is in a very vulnerable cycle, he says. "There is no doubt a danger to people getting these shocks because if it's in the vulnerable period it could induce a cardiac arrest," Mehta explains. "Police will have to be trained to give these patients a second shock from an external defibrillator to resuscitate them."

Despite such concerns, a company called ShockRounds, has agreed to produce LeBourgeois's bullets. Company spokesman Chris Nichols believes the technology will help more than hurt law enforcement and the public. "We're trying to provide police with non-lethal approaches to dealing with dangerous situations," he says.

Kadiatou Diallo is skeptical. "It's like electrocution," she says. "If you try to electrocute someone that can cause heart attack...Is that the solution?" Instead, she believes it's good police work more than anything that saves lives.

In the five years since his death, Mrs. Diallo has tried to clear up misconceptions surrounding the case, namely that her son might not have understood English well enough to follow police orders. Fluent in five languages, Diallo had lived all over the world before immigrating to America. To honor his journey Mrs. Diallo wrote a book, My Heart Will Cross this Ocean, detailing her struggles to raise him and how along the way she lost him. She also started the Amadou Diallo Foundation, through which she funds scholarships for African immigrants, speaks to police and community groups, and uses her son's death to prevent similar tragedies.

"I am thankful to God that I did not sink in bitterness," she says. "Of course, I'm angry. But I'm not bitter because if you are bitter it's like a cancer. It's finished. I'm using my energy to do something positive for Amadou."

John LeBourgeois hopes his electric bullet will do the same: "I would like to see it save lives."