UPDATES: Unfuckingbelievable: NY Cops cleared of a murder they obviously committed

UPDATE 4. MY OWN EXPERIENCE.  Somewhere on this blog is an article I wrote called “The inevitable death of this brutha of mine”.  It’s the story of my personal experience witnessing a police shooting of a Black man.  It’s been a few years, so from what I can recalled, he killed at least one child.  He was high, and not in his right mind.

The story doesn’t compare to the Sean Bell case in anyway, because the brutha’s whose life I saw end on a neighborhood street was guilty, and he was in the middle of the street attempting to shoot at a police officer.  So I don’t ever think about what I witnessed when I think about Sean Bell.

But tonight, reflecting on the days, and week’s news, I thought about Sean Bell and his last moments of life.  Of what it must be like to have a bunch of people shooting at you.  And then, I remembered that’s I’d seen that, in “inevitable”.  Not 50 shots.  Maybe 15 or 20.  But it gave me a visual that leaves me deeply disturbed.

I’ve worked in criminal justice and studied it, so I know why it is cops always get off, even when they’ve undeniably carried out an unjust killing of a Black man; to protect themselves.  To protect their system.  To protect their power.  They can’t be wrong.  And people will continue to die.  Black men will continue to die.

Peace.

UPDATE 3. ABORTION OF JUSTICE  “What we saw in court today was not a miscarriage of justice,” the Rev. Al Sharpton said today 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 on Wednesday.

Bell, 23, died in November 2006 in a 50-bullet barrage — 31 fired by Oliver — hours before he was to be married. Two of his companions were wounded in the gunfire outside a Queens nightclub. iReport.com: Watch how long it takes to fire 31 rounds

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.”

Patrick Lynch, president of the New York Police Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, said “there’s no winners, there’s no losers” in the case.

“We still have a death that occurred. We still have police officers that have to live with the fact that there was a death involved in their case,” Lynch said.

But, he added, the verdict assured police officers that they will be treated fairly in New York’s courts.

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.

UPDATE 2. TENSIONS MOUNT The verdict provoked an outpouring of emotions: Bell’s fiancee 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.

Scores of police officers formed lines in the middle of traffic to block the crowd from charging the courthouse. 

Some spectators briefly jostled with the officers right after the verdict was announced and several people rushed out of the courthouse, but the contact didn’t become violent.

UPDATE 1. RIOTS IN NY? The wail that came up from the crowd was as if they heard that Sean Bell had died again.

“No!” they shouted, while dozens of people, wearing Bell’s face on hats, T-shirts and buttons, burst into sobs.

The scene unfolded outside the courthouse Friday as three police officers were cleared of all charges in the 2006 shooting of Bell, who died in a hail of 50 bullets on his wedding day.

Hundreds of friends of Bell and others wanted vindication for what they called a racially motivated shooting, and they reacted with tears and explosive anger to the officers’ acquittal.

Many people in the predominantly black crowd began reciting other cases where black New Yorkers were shot by police, and the officers, they said, got away with it.

“This was a disgrace, what happened today,” shouted Calvin Hutton, a Harlem resident. “We prayed for a different result, but we got the same old bull—-.”

Inside the packed Queens courtroom, gasps could be heard when Judge Arthur Cooperman acquitted the officers. Bell’s mother cried; her husband put his arm around her and shook his head. Bell’s fiancee, Nicole Paultre Bell, left the courtroom immediately. Officer Michael Oliver, who fired the most shots, also cried.

“It hurts,” said Paultre Bell’s attorney, Michael Hardy. “If it didn’t you wouldn’t be human. Because it touches real lives. … This is not over. This is not over.”

A friend led a visibly upset shooting survivor Trent Benefield from the courthouse, with an arm firmly around his shoulders, while enraged people outside shouted “Murderers! Murderers!”

Scores of police officers formed lines in the middle of traffic to block the crowd from charging the courthouse. Some spectators briefly jostled with the officers right after the verdict was announced and several people rushed out of the courthouse, but the contact didn’t become violent.

The crowd wore black T-shirts with Bell’s face in a yellow circle in the middle, while other shirts read “Justice for Sean Bell.” One group held a banner proclaiming, “50 Shots. 50 More Reasons We Need Revolution.”

Dozens of people briefly began pushing and shoving each other as a crowd of hundreds started a processional following Bell’s fiancee and Rev. Al Sharpton to their cars, on their way to Bell’s gravesite. No one was hurt or arrested.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said, “We don’t anticipate violence, but we are prepared for any contingency.”

Despite the anger over the verdict, the protests were muted compared with past verdicts where officers were cleared in police shootings of black men. Several factors contributed to this, including improved race relations in the city in recent years and the fact that two of the officers are black.

Patrick Lynch, president of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, said the judge sent a message to officers that “when you’re in front of the bench, that you will get fairness.” But he said of the case: “there’s no winners, there’s no losers. We still have a death that occurred.”

William Hardgraves, 48, an electrician from Harlem, brought his 12-year-old son and 23-year-old daughter to hear the verdict. “It could have been my son, it could have been my daughter” shot like Bell that night, he said.

He didn’t know what result he had expected.

“I hoped it would be different this time. They shot him 50 times,” Hardgraves said. “But of course, it wasn’t.” A judge acquitted three New York Police Department detectives of all charges Friday morning in the shooting death of an unarmed man in a 50-bullet barrage, hours before he was to be married.

Detectives Michael Oliver and Gescard Isnora were found not guilty of charges of manslaughter, assault and reckless endangerment in the death of Sean Bell, 23, and the wounding of two of his friends.

Detective Marc Cooper was acquitted of reckless endangerment.

Justice Arthur Cooperman said he found problems with the prosecution’s case. He said some prosecution witnesses contradicted themselves, and he cited prior convictions and incarcerations of witnesses.

He also cited the demeanor of some witnesses on the stand.

As the judge read his decision, Nicole Paultre Bell — Sean Bell’s fiancee before his death — ran from the courtroom, saying, “I’ve got to get out of here.”

The announcement immediately sparked anger among some in the crowd outside the courthouse, but the protests were generally orderly.

One woman shouted at a black police officer, “How can you be proud to wear that uniform? Stand down! Stop working for the masters!” Sean Bell was black.

Patrick Lynch, president of the New York Police Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, said “there’s no winners, there’s no losers” in the case.

“We still have a death that occurred. We still have police officers that have to live with the fact that there was a death involved in their case,” Lynch said.

But, he added, the verdict assured police officers that they will be treated fairly in New York’s courts.

“This case was not about justice,” said 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.”

The Rev. Al Sharpton, who has been advising Bell’s fiancee and family, left the courthouse about an hour after the verdict without making a public statement. He had called for calm Wednesday.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg issued a statement saying, “An innocent man lost his life, a bride lost her groom, two daughters lost their father, and a mother and a father lost their son. No verdict could ever end the grief that those who knew and loved Sean Bell suffer.”

However, he said, the legal system must be respected.

“America is a nation of laws, and though not everyone will agree with the verdicts and opinions issued by the courts, we accept their authority.”

Bloomberg also said he had spoken briefly with Paultre Bell on Wednesday and agreed with her on the need to ensure similar incidents would not occur in the future.

Bell, 23, was killed just before dawn on his wedding day, November 25, 2006. He and several friends were winding up 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.

Undercover detectives were inside the club, and plainclothes officers were stationed outside.

Witnesses said that about 4 a.m., closing time, as Bell and his friends left the club, an argument broke out. Believing that one of Bell’s friends, Joseph Guzman, was going to get a gun from Bell’s car, one of the undercover detectives followed the men and called for backup.

What happened next was at the heart of the trial, prosecuted by the assistant district attorney in Queens. 

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.

Bell was in a panic to get away from the armed men, his friends testified.

But the detectives thought Bell was trying to run down one of them, according to their lawyers, believed that their lives were in danger and started shooting.

In a frantic 911 call, police can be heard saying, “Shots fired. Undercover units involved.”

A total of 50 bullets were fired by five NYPD officers. Only three were charged with crimes.

Oliver, who reloaded his semiautomatic in the middle of the fray, fired 31 times, Isnora fired 11 times, and Cooper, whose leg was brushed by Bell’s moving car, fired four times, the NYPD said.

No gun was found near Bell or his friends.

Soon after his death, Bell’s fiancee, Nicole Paultre, legally changed her name to Nicole Paultre Bell. She is raising the couple’s two daughters, ages 5 and 1.

“I tell [them] that Daddy’s in heaven now,” she said. “He’s watching over us. He’s our guardian angel. He’s going to be here to protect us and make sure nothing happens to us.”

Detectives Endowment Association President Michael Palladino said forensic and scientific evidence presented during the seven-week trial contradicts the testimony of prosecution witnesses.

But Paultre Bell’s father, Lester Paultre, said, “For those naysayers who say the police was doing their job, they should imagine their child in that car being shot by the police for no reason.”

Paultre Bell, Guzman and Benefield have filed a wrongful-death lawsuit in federal court that has been stayed pending the outcome of the criminal trial. Guzman was shot 16 times, and four bullets, too dangerous to remove, remain in his body, according to his lawyer, Sanford Rubenstein.

Federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York have been monitoring the trial. In the event of an acquittal, it is likely authorities would conduct a review to determine whether there were any civil rights violations.