In 1986 , whites in the Howard Beach neighborhood in Queens chased and beat three black men , one of whom fled into the path of an oncoming car , was struck and died ; in 1991 , the Crown Heights area of Brooklyn spun out of control after a black child was killed by a car driven by a Hasidic man ; in 1999 , police officers shot and killed Amadou Diallo , an immigrant from Guinea who made the mistake of reaching into his pocket .