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3 Detectives Acquitted in Bell Shooting
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by urbano411 | April 25, 2008 at 08:11 am
277 views | 20 Recommendations | 3 comments
We must elevate our conversation to face the weakness of ourcommunities. Our economic, social and political agenda must beaddressed beyond the complaints that we all can agree fill ourdiscussion. If we can move above the fray of this and the many pastshameful events that have given everyone a sense of devalued existence,we can move towards empowering ourselves and making each person in ourcommunity too valuable for snap JUDGMENTS to be acceptable. The law isan absolute science without emotion or accountability of suffering. Itis time we learn make the value of life our central topic. No morekilling of our people should be tolerated from anyone inside or outsideof our community. Until this becomes our focus we will relive theseabuses of justice again and again. The message is clearly a judgmentof value. We must raise our value! No more glory of thugs, drugs, guns,diamonds and gold. We once hustled to survive, we now survive to hustle. That must change NOW. Our children deserve a betterworld. A world that recognizes them for the valuable human resourcesthat they are. A world were judgments of our intentions are not metwith the death of our people.
Three detectives were found not guilty Friday morning on all charges in the shooting death of Sean Bell, who died in a hail of 50 police bullets outside a club in Jamaica, Queens.Justice Arthur J. Cooperman, who delivered the verdict, said many ofthe prosecution’s witnesses, including Mr. Bell’s friends and the twowounded victims, were simply not believable. “At times, the testimonyof those witnesses just didn’t make sense,” he said.
His verdictprompted several supporters of Mr. Bell to storm out of the courtroom,and screams could be heard in the hallway moments later. The threedetectives — Gescard F. Isnora, Michael Oliver and Marc Cooper — wereescorted out of a side doorway. Outside, a crowd gathered behind policebarricades, occasionally shouting, amid a veritable sea of policeofficers.
The verdict comes 17 months to the day since the Nov.25, 2006, shooting of Mr. Bell, 23, and his friends, Joseph Guzman andTrent Benefield, outside the Club Kalua in Jamaica, Queens, hoursbefore Mr. Bell was to be married.
It was delivered in a packedcourtroom and was heard by, among others, the slain man’s parents andhis fiancée. The seven-week trial, which ended April 14, was heard byJustice Cooperman in State Supreme Court in Queens after the defendantswaived their right to a jury, a strategy some lawyers called risky atthe time. But it clearly paid off with Friday’s verdict.
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (3)
at 08:21 on April 25th, 2008
urbano411, I like this story. It's good stuff.
at 08:36 on April 25th, 2008
I was horrified to hear about this, but not truly surprised.
at 10:35 on April 26th, 2008
Unfortunately, in the United States, in most cities, all that is required for a police officer to use deadly force is the 'belief' that he or she or their partner is in danger. That standard is a dangerous criterion in moments requiring split second decision making.
In this case, the fact that one of the officers emptied his gun, reloaded and resumed firing, seemed to indicate some type of wrong doing, minimally, on his part. None of the officers reported being fired upon.
Since the case was tried before the judge alone, although we citizens are supposed to believe otherwise, the judge, just like a jury, comes to sit on the bench, relying on his own life experience, where most often those coming before his court are found guilty, and his own perceptions of life on the streets. In most cases, there is a natural, maybe even, an unconscious, bias in favor of police officers on trial.
The request to avoid a jury trial was a standard, legal tactic but, it assured the police officers on trial would not have a jury of jurors whose members themselves or their relatives, friends or acquaintances, who'd had negative experiences with police, being seated on that jury.
Given the fact that the officers were undercover and out of uniform, and any actions or inaction on the parts of Sean Bell and his friends to respond to them, with Bell's friends saying the officers did not identify themselves and the officers telling the exact opposite story, all that was left were the only facts that could be verified, that being 51 shots were fired into the car and no gun was found on the victims or in the bullet ridden vehicle.
It would seem, to most logical people, that something excessive had occurred there.