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]