Sean Bell was killed just before dawn on his wedding day, November 25, 2006 by three detectives who fired over 50 rounds into his body. He and several friends were at an all-night bachelor party at the Kalua Club in Queens, a strip club that was under investigation by a NYPD undercover unit looking into complaints of guns, drugs, and prostitution.
Witnesses said around closing time, Bell and his friends left the club, and argument broke out. Believing that one of Bell’s friends, Joseph Guzman, was going to get a gun from Bell’s car, an undercover detective who was inside, followed the men and called for backup.
Bell, Guzman and Trent Benefield got into the car, with Bell at the wheel. The detectives drew their weapons, said Guzman and Benefield, who testified that they never heard the plainclothes detectives identify themselves as police.
Not knowing that the men were officers, Bell panicked to get away from the armed men, his friends testified. But the detectives thought Bell was trying to run down one of them, believed that their lives were in danger and started shooting, according to their lawyers. Not one shot to stop them, but over 50 bullets were fired by the NYPD officers.
After the verdict was read Nicole Paultre Bell bolted from the courtroom as a Judge acquitted the three New York City Detectives of all charges in the shooting death of her finance.
"I've got to get out of here," Paultre Bell said.
Justice Arthur Cooperman was announcing the verdict clearing Detectives Michael Oliver and Gescard Isnora of manslaughter, assault and reckless endangerment in the death of Sean Bell.
Detective Marc Cooper was cleared of reckless endangerment.
"What we saw in court today was not a miscarriage of justice," the Rev. Al Sharpton said on his radio program. "Justice didn't miscarry," he said. "This was an abortion of justice. Justice was aborted."
Sharpton, who has been advising Bell's family, had called for calm Wednesday.
The three officers made brief statements more than four hours after the verdict.
"I want to say sorry to Bell family for the tragedy," Cooper said.
Isnora thanked the judge "for his fair and accurate decision today."
Oliver praised Cooperman "for a fair and just decision."
That's not how one community leader viewed it.
"This case was not about justice," declared Leroy Gadsden, chair of the police/community relations committee of the Jamaica Branch NAACP. "This case was about the police having a right to be above the law. If the law was in effect here, if the judge had followed the law truly, these officers would have been found guilty.
"This court, unfortunately, is bankrupt when it comes to justice for people of color."
Many people outside the courthouse saw it differently.
"You can't be proud of wearing that hat. You can't be proud of wearing that badge," a black woman shouted at a black police officer. "You must stop working for the masters! Stand down! Stop working for the masters!"
"Fifty shots is murder. I don't care what you say. That's what it is," another woman said.
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I have to agree 50 shots at anyone is murder.
1 comment:
This is just another example of how Police are given carte blanche in our country. When obvious racial prejudice is so obvious, and the pigs take care of their own, it's hard not to feel outrage. Had this murder not involved police there would have been a much different outcome. What does this say about the rights we give our citizens? Are the lives of our people less important than the lives of those of who are set to serve public interest and safety?
This is just one of the hundreds of murders police will walk away from this year. Sadly, most of the others won't get this kind of media attention.
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