Three Detectives Acquitted in Sean Bell Shooting Death

Criminal Justice

Three Detectives Acquitted in Sean Bell Shooting Death

Posted Apr 25, 2008, 07:44 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss

Updated: Three New York detectives have been acquitted of all charges in the shooting death of Sean Bell outside a Queens nightclub.

Several of Bell’s supporters stormed out of the courtroom after the verdict and screams could be heard in courthouse hallways, the New York Times reports.

Police shot Bell, an unarmed black man, 50 times as he was leaving his bachelor party, the Associated Press reports. The detectives waived their right to a jury and a judge issued the verdict, finding the shooting was justified, the Times Ledger reports. The officers claimed they feared they were about to be shot.

Bell’s friends had testified police didn’t identify themselves when they walked up to Bell’s car with guns drawn. Police differed with that account.

Two of the officers were charged with manslaughter, assault and reckless endangerment; a third was accused of reckless endangerment, the New York Daily News reports.

New York City police were on alert for possible protests or rioting, ABAJournal.com noted yesterday. The Times' CityRoom blog said that by 9:30 a.m. ET, supporters outside the courthouse were blocking traffic as they awaited the arrival of the Rev. Al Sharpton. But Sharpton left the courthouse shortly after 10 a.m. without making a statement. By 11 a.m., the crowd had "all but dispersed."

Updated at 12:24 p.m. CT to reflect the changing scene outside the courthouse.

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Posted by CG - 7 months, 1 week, 6 hours, 36 minutes ago

The facts as they have been described in this article leave a lot of holes. That being said, it seems like this is more of an execution on the part of the police. Picture the story from the victims perspective. You’re in a club and an altercation occurs where the other party acts as if they have a gun. At this point you decide to leave (or go get a gun according to police testimony even though this doesn’t match the facts we know occured because if they were going to get a gun why then did they start to pull away to leave), as you’re leaving a man steps in front of the car and tries to stop you and then a unmarked van pulls into your vehicles path. If I were the driver in this situation I would be thinking car jacking and I better get the hell out of there. Furthermore the article states that the victim ramed the van and then one of the people inside the car acted as if he were reaching for a gun. Who knows what he could be reaching for, they were just in a collision in what for all purposes seems to be a car jacking rather than a police stop.

THis is a situation where the undercover police should have stuck to the purpose that brought them there in the first place. They were there to investigate a prostitution ring, not to question patrons of the bar on gun possession. I realize that the officers thought something bad was about to happen, but this level of force should never be used until you KNOW something bad is happening.

The facts, as they are laid out in the article, point to the police causing the issue, misinterpreting the facts, and using excessive force. I understand that police officers are put into very dangerous situations, but that is there job. If the officer wanted to talk to the victim in this case he should have called for backup, identified himself to the victims before they even left the bar, and then calmly sorted out the altercation. However, this would have all been avoided if the officer would have just stuck to the prostitution investigation instead of trying to make a big issue out of a minor altercation in a “seedy” topless bar.

I got many facts from: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24305660/

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