On March 1, 2000, 23-year-old Malcolm Ferguson was fatally shot in the Bronx by an undercover police officer. The shooting took place a few blocks from where Amadou Diallo had been killed the year before, a proximity that heightened community tensions. Ferguson had been arrested five days earlier for protesting the acquittal of the officers in the Diallo case.

Accounts of what happened differ sharply. Officer Louis Rivera said Ferguson was a drug suspect who struggled with him inside an apartment building at 1045 Boynton Avenue and that his gun discharged accidentally, striking Ferguson in the head. Family members and witnesses say Ferguson was unarmed, was shot in the street rather than inside the building, and had been subject to prior harassment after filing a lawsuit against the NYPD. Some accounts say no drugs were found on him. Medical testimony in a later civil trial indicated the gun was fired with the barrel touching Ferguson’s temple.

Ferguson’s mother, Juanita Young, filed a civil suit; a Bronx jury later found Rivera fully responsible for wrongful death and awarded more than $10 million, an amount reduced on appeal. The Bronx District Attorney’s office did not bring criminal charges, concluding the shooting was accidental. Did anyone who knew Malcolm or who witnessed the shooting come forward with details that were not heard at trial?