Following weeks of campus-wide protests over the Amadou Diallo shooting verdict, 24 of Harvard's most prominent black faculty members have signed a statement calling for an extended partnership between law enforcement and the nation's minority communities.

Diallo, an unarmed immigrant from West Africa, was shot and killed by four New York City police officers in February 1999. The police officers said they mistook him for a rape suspect and mistook a wallet in his hand for a gun.

In late February, a jury of seven white men, one white woman and four black women acquitted the officers of wrongdoing.

In the professors' statement, entitled "The Diallo Case is Far From Over," the professors do not explicitly condemn the jury's verdict, though they say it leaves wounds unhealed.

The statement mentions "the further pain felt by so many as a result of the recent acquittal of the officers on all counts," but goes no further in its characterization of the legal process.

The brunt of the statement is a call to reform the New York City Police Department (NYPD) and to reduce instances of police impropriety.

The professors' proposals include:

--a U.S. Justice Department investigation into the shooting and further federal scrutiny into the NYPD's standards and practices.