3 NYPD Detectives Acquitted in Groom Slaying NEW YORK - Three detectives were acquitted of all charges Friday in the 50 shot killing of an unarmed groom-to-be on his wedding day, a case that put the New York Police Department at the center of another dispute involving allegations of excessive firepower.
Justice Arthur Cooperman delivered the verdict in a Queens courtroom packed with spectators, including victim Sean Bell's fiancée and parents, as at least 200 people gathered outside the building.
The verdict provoked an outpouring of emotions: Bell's fiancée immediately walked out of the room and his mother wept. Officer Michael Oliver, who fired the most shots, also cried.
Outside the courthouse, which was surrounded by scores of police officers, many in the crowd began weeping after hearing the verdict. Others were enraged, swearing and screaming, "Murderers! Murderers!" or "KKK!" Before announcing the verdict, the judge made a statement indicating that the police officers' version of events was more credible than that of the victims.
"The people have not proved beyond a reasonable doubt that each defendant was not justified" in shooting the victims, Cooperman said. About the version of events offered by the victims and other prosecution witnesses, he said, "...at times the testimony just didn't make sense."
Bell, a 23-year-old black man, was killed in a hail of gunfire outside a seedy strip club in Queens on Nov. 25, 2006, his wedding day, as he was leaving his bachelor party with two friends. Oliver, 36, and Gescard Isnora, 29, were charged with manslaughter while Officer Marc Cooper, 40, was accused only of reckless endangerment. Two other shooters weren't charged. Oliver squeezed off 31 shots; Isnora fired 11 rounds; and Cooper shot four times. A conviction on manslaughter could have brought up to 25 years in prison.
This case brought back painful memories of other NYPD shootings, such as the 1999 shooting of Amadou Diallo, an African immigrant who was gunned down in a hail of 41 bullets by police officers who mistook his wallet for a gun. The acquittal of the officers in that case created a storm of protest, with hundreds arrested after taking to the streets in demonstration. The mood surrounding this case has been muted by comparison, although Bell's fiancée, parents, and their supporters, including the Rev. Al Sharpton, have held rallies demanding that the officers, two of whom are black, be held accountable.
The officers, complaining that pretrial publicity had unfairly painted them as cold-blooded killers, opted to have the judge decide the case rather than a jury.
After the verdict, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly acknowledged that some people were disappointed with the acquittals. "We don't anticipate violence but, we are prepared for any contingency," he said. The nearly two-month trial was marked by deeply divergent accounts on the part of defense lawyers and prosecutors.
The defense painted the victims as drunken thugs who the officers believed were armed and dangerous. Prosecutors sought to convince the judge that the victims had been minding their own business, and that the officers were inept, trigger-happy cowboys.
In his closing arguments, prosecutor Charles Testagrossa alluded to the starkly different views of the shooting. "If you are a police officer or sympathetic to police officers, the defendants are tragic heroes and the victims are thugs," he said. "If you are friends of the victims, then the defendants are murderers."
None of the officers took the witness stand in his own defense. Instead, Cooperman heard transcripts of the officers testifying before a grand jury, saying they believed they had good reason to use deadly force.
The judge also heard testimony from Bell's two injured companions, who insisted the maelstrom erupted without warning. "It happened so quick," said Isnora in his grand jury testimony. "It was like the last thing I ever wanted to do." Bell's companions, Trent Benefield and Joseph Guzman, also offered dramatic testimony about the episode. Benefield and Guzman were both wounded; Guzman still has four bullets lodged in his body.
Okay, that was the story. Here is my question...
Why? Why does this kind of thing keep happening to African-American males? If you look at Rodney King and go through all of the cases of obsessive force over the last few years, it is almost always an African-American man on the bad end of a bullet or a night stick. Sean Bell was unarmed.
I have been the victim of racial profiling myself over the years. Often stopped and searched because "I didn't look like I belong somewhere" or I "fit the description of a subject" who was always black, over six feet, slender, etc. I always took it personally and was usually in a bad mood for hours after one of these episodes.
I get so angry when I hear white Americans say that "black people commit most of the crimes and that's why the police profile them so much." People have written into newspapers saying as much... they just don't understand... they still don't understand how a lot of black people and black men in particular, feel about racial profiling. Being stopped, searched, and watched everytime you're in a store, regardless of your age or how you're dressed.
Arab Americans know how black people feel. Since 9/11, they are constantly stopped and searched at airports, taken off of planes, and have had their every move watched. They KNOW how we feel. Of course, it's not fair because I'm sure that a lot of them are loyal, law abiding American Citizens. But, after the terror attacks... a little understandable... but, still not right.
White people will never understand what it feels like to be put under the spotlight like that because it has never happened to them. When Timothy McVeigh blew up the Oklahoma Federal Building, white boys with crew cuts were not profiled. He was viewed as just a separate case, as he should have.
Do you see where I'm going with this? In the Sean Bell case, it was said that this was not racial profiling because two of the officers who pumped 50 odd rounds into him were black. It doesn't matter. They, too, were profiling him just like their white counterparts were. Same System, same visualization.
So, white America... I have a question for you. When will this mean something to you? When will you have had enough of this kind of thing. Does a white male have to die like this before it makes you say enough? I would hope not. I don't want this to happen to anyone, regardless of race or national origin.
Put yourself in our place.
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