Clinton Apologizes for Diallo Comment

NEW YORK (AP) -- Hillary Rodham Clinton apologized for calling the police shooting of unarmed immigrant Amadou Diallo a ``murder.''

``I misspoke,'' she said on WNBC-TV's ``News Forum,'' which aired Sunday. ``That was just a misstatement on my part.''

Clinton had used the word on Martin Luther King Day, when she noted that Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., had given ``a speech after the tragic murder of Mr. Diallo in which he said that what every community, but particularly the African-American community, wants is to be respected and protected.''

The four officers on trial in the shooting of Diallo have pleaded innocent to charges of second-degree murder.

When their trial began two weeks ago, a group of police officers and others held a news conference saying the first lady had ``prejudged the officers'' and ``poisoned the jury pool.''

Clinton said on Sunday's show that whether the death was a case of murder was ``what the jury should decide.''

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