A year after an Albany jury exonerated four New York City police officers who killed Amadou Diallo after mistakenly thinking he had flashed a weapon, an undercover detective accidentally killed off-duty security guard Patrick Dorismond in a street scuffle following a botched drug sting.

Comparing the two incidents, the New York Times editorialized: "there were no indications that race had played a role [in the Dorismond shooting], as was alleged in the death of Mr. Diallo." The Times went on to explain that whereas the officers in the Diallo case were white, "the three officers involved in the confrontation with [Dorismond] are Hispanic."

In neither case had there been any allegations of racist statements on the part of police officers, or even any tendency to ignore white suspects to concentrate maliciously on blacks.

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