By MARILYN VOGT-DOWNEY
Police Commissioner Howard Safir’s first response to the Diallo killing was to order more careful training of SCU cops.
Then on Feb. 13, he joined Mayor Giuliani at a press conference to announce plans to make cops’ guns even more gruesome by issuing hollow-point “dumdum” bullets to the NYPD in the coming months.
Dumdum bullets are constructed to expand upon impact with the human body. They do not pass through the victim’s body and, therefore, will not hit bystanders; that was Safir’s and Giuliani’s rationalization for introducing them. However, as these bullets expand, they tear body tissue and internal organs.
Dumdum bullets were banned by the first International Peace Conference in The Hague in 1899, an indication that even 100 years ago, the dumdum was considered barbaric.
