Jurors visit Manhattan scene of NYPD Shooting of African immigrant

• Coroner: Bullets hit Zongo from Behind [more]
  

During the afternoon visit to Chelsea Mini-Storage, at 12th Avenue and West 27th Street, the jurors were shown storage bins that figure in the trial of Officer Bryan Conroy, 25, who is charged with manslaughter in the death of Ousmane Zongo, 43. The jurors were shown the third-floor storage bin where Conroy, on May 22, 2003, was guarding a cache of counterfeit CDs and DVDs that police had seized, the nearby bin where Zongo kept and repaired African musical instruments and art objects and the corridor where the shooting occurred. The panel also was shown the sixth-floor bin where police had seized other counterfeit items and had arrested a suspect and the third-floor spot where a witness said he had heard noises. During the 35-minute tour only the judge, Justice Daniel FitzGerald, and the building's chief of security, Valoyd Glover, spoke. The judge, in street clothes, announced the beginning and end of the tour, and Glover announced the bin numbers. Nothing else was said.  The last courtroom witness before the trip was Dr. Nancy Kwon, a physician who was working in Bellevue Hospital's emergency room the night Conroy came in after he shot Zongo. Kwon testified that she did not see any injuries on Conroy and that he told her he was not injured. This conflicted with defense lawyer Stuart London's claim that Conroy had a red mark on his nose after a "life and death struggle" with Zongo over the police officer's gun. Zongo, a Burkina Faso native who spoke little English, encountered Conroy about 4 p.m. Conroy, working undercover, tried to question Zongo, and what happened afterward is in dispute. London said Conroy, wearing his badge pinned to his shirt, chased Zongo while screaming that he was a police officer. After Conroy shot Zongo, London said, he told the first police officer he saw, "He tried to take my gun. I had to shoot him." Assistant District Attorney Armand Durastanti said Conroy, wearing his father's postal uniform, approached an unarmed Zongo, who was not suspected of wrongdoing, with his gun drawn. When Zongo fled, Conroy chased and recklessly fired at him, killing him, the prosecutor said. Conroy faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted. [more]