Sean Bell

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Sean Bell (May 18, 1983–November 25, 2006) was an African American who was shot and killed by plainclothes New York Police Department detectives on November 25, 2006. Bell and two other friends were leaving Bell's bachelor party at a strip club in Jamaica, Queens when they were shot, in an incident that sparked fierce criticism of the police for the killing of an unarmed man and drew comparisons to the 1999 killing of Amadou Diallo.^[1] Three of the five detectives involved in the shooting were indicted by a grand jury for the incident.^[2]

Contents 1 Background 2 Shooting incident 3 Response 4 Investigation and criminal indictment 5 References 6 See also

[edit] Background

Bell was the nephew of University of Miami basketball coach Frank Haith.^[3] As a teenager, he studied acting in Flushing.^[4] He was a star pitcher for John Adams High School in Ozone Park, but gave up his sports dreams when his girlfriend became pregnant. His senior year season ended with an 11-0 record, a 2.30 E.R.A. and 97 strikeouts in 62.2 innings.

Bell held odd jobs after the birth of his daughter. His fiancée, Nicole Paultre, told Larry King that Bell was an electrician by trade and in between jobs when the shooting occurred.^[5]

Bell had been arrested three times, twice for drug dealing and once for a firearms possession.^[6] In all cases, he was released on his own recognizance.^[7] The New York Daily News reported that, according to law enforcement sources, Bell sold crack cocaine twice to a confidential police informant in August of 2006.^[8] Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield, also shot in the incident, had been arrested nine and two times, respectively, each having been arrested at least once for illegal firearm possession.^[6] Benefield was subsequently arrested during a gambling raid in Harlem after attending the funeral of James Brown.

[edit] Shooting incident

At the time Bell was holding his bachelor party at Kalua Cabaret, a venue notorious for prostitution, drug-arrests and liquor-law violations. The club was being investigated by seven undercover police detectives.^[9] The New York Post reported that, according to an unnamed undercover officer, Guzman had an argument inside the club with a woman and threatened to get a gun. The woman was reportedly overheard saying to the men arguing with Bell's friends, "I'm not doing you all. I'll do one or two, but not all."^[10] The undercover officer followed the group and Bell was ordered by the officer to raise his hands after getting in his car. Instead, the car hit the undercover officer and, seconds later, an unmarked police minivan.^[1] A toxicology report reportedly showed that he was legally drunk at the time of the shooting. An attorney for the Bell family said in response to the report, "No matter what his blood-alcohol level was, he's a victim."^[11]

Other accounts of the incident conflict with that of the undercover officers'. According to Guzman and lawyer Michael Hardy, the detectives never identified themselves while they approached the vehicle with drawn weapons.^[8] Another source also told New York Daily News that the officers failed to warn Bell before opening fire and started firing immediately upon leaving their vehicles.^[12]

The police officer who initiated the gunfire said that he saw a fourth man in the car, who fled the scene amid the chaos, possibly with the alleged weapon that wasn't recovered. Some civilian witnesses at the scene support this claim, and pointed to Jean Nelson as the fourth man. Nelson was possibly present at the bachelor party and witnessed the shooting, but denies being in the car or possessing a gun.^[13][14] According to The New York Times, a preliminary police report of the shooting contains

"... no meaningful discussion of a fourth man, a mysterious figure who some in the Police Department have suggested may have been present along with the three men who were shot. None of the witnesses whose accounts are in the report speaks of someone who may have fled — perhaps possessing a gun — and there are no indications that the police at the time were seeking anyone who may have left the scene."^[15]

Critics suggest that the scenario was concocted by the police officer in order to justify the shooting.^[13] Columnist Juan Gonzalez reported in the New York Daily News that, according to a law enforcement source, in the hours immediately following the incident, there was no mention of a fourth man in the police calls and no search was launched for the potentially armed man. This source thus contradicted initial reports that the police searched the neighborhood for the missing man.^[16]

According to Michael Palladino, the head of the detectives union, a man that was working as a janitor in a nearby building while the incident occurred later told the detectives that he had seen a black man fleeing the scene, and that the man had fired a gun, at least once, at the police. The witness further stated that he had then heard the officers shouting "police, police." According to the police, there is no ballistic evidence indicating that any weapon, other than those of the officers', was fired at the scene. ^[17].

While many have claimed that the shooting was racially motivated, two of the five officers involved were black, one was white, one was Middle-Eastern, and one was of biracial black and Hispanic origin (Haitian/Mexican). The first officer to fire was black.^[18]

In an interview on Larry King Live, accompanying Bell's fiancée Nicole Paultre, Al Sharpton stated that according to his conversations with eye-witnesses, none of the three men who were shot mentioned a gun while leaving the club. Sharpton also felt that it would be impossible for the persons in the car to have heard the police from within the car, and that they were likely to fear that they were being carjacked.^[5]

According to Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, veteran officer Michael Oliver emptied two full magazines, firing 31 shots from a 9mm handgun and pausing to reload at least once.^[9] Some shots hit nearby homes and a train station. Five of the seven officers investigating the club were involved in the shooting. Detective Paul Headley fired one round, Officer Michael Carey fired three, Officer Marc Cooper fired four, Officer Gescard Isnora fired eleven, and Officer Michael Oliver fired thirty one times. ^{[19] [20][21]}

Guzman, 31, was shot at least 11 times and Benefield, 23, who was in the back seat, was hit three times. Both men were taken to Mary Immaculate Hospital; at the time of admission Guzman was listed in critical condition and Benefield was in stable condition.^[9] Benefield was released from the hospital on 5 December 2006,^[22] while Guzman was released on 25 January 2007.^[23] Surveillance cameras at the Port Authority's Jamaica AirTrain station a half block away from the shooting site recorded one of the bullets fired by the cops shattering through the station's glass window and narrowly missing a civilian and two Port Authority patrolmen who were standing on the station's elevated platform.^[16][24]

[edit] Response

Hundreds of protesters came out over the weekend following Bell's death to protest the amount of force used; protests continued into the following week.^[25] Some have noted the similarity between this incident and past shootings of unarmed people, such as Amadou Diallo.^[1][26] The family has designated Al Sharpton as their advisor.^[27]

New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg has said "it sounds to me like excessive force was used,"^[28] and has called the shooting "inexplicable" and "unacceptable".^[27] Ex-New York governor George E. Pataki has also stated that the shooting was excessive.^[27] Kelly has put the five officers involved on paid administrative leave and stripped them of their weapons, a move the New York Times called "forceful".^[27] He told the Times that the officers were stripped of their guns because "there were, and are, too many unanswered questions."^[27] Both Bloomberg and Kelly have also noted that the shooting was possibly in violation of department guidelines prohibiting shooting at a moving vehicle, even if the vehicle is being used as a weapon.^[29] The Public Advocate extended condolences to Bell's fiancee and family following the killing.^[30]

On December 7, 2006, Nicole Paultre legally changed her name to Nicole Paultre-Bell to "honor the memory" of Sean Bell.^[31] New York State laws require a couple to obtain a marriage license prior to a wedding, and "although the marriage license is issued immediately, the marriage ceremony may not take place within 24 hours from the exact time that the license was issued."^[32] According to Nicole Paultre's attorney, a posthumous wedding was impossible since no marriage license had yet been signed.^[31]

On March 5, 2007, it was announced that a Rikers Island inmate offered to pay an undercover police officer posing as a hit man to behead New York City police commissioner Raymond Kelly and bomb police headquarters in retaliation for the incident.^[33][34]

On March 25, 2007, New York Daily News reported that an unnamed Queens drug dealer, after being arrested, alleged that Sean Bell had shot him the previous year on July 13, 2006 over a drug turf dispute. Police sources called the drug dealer's account credible, but could not rule out the possibility of the drug dealer falsely identifying Sean Bell to garner favor with authorities. Sanford Rubenstein, (the attorney representing the Bell family, Nicole Paultre, and the two other occupants of the vehicle that were wounded during the shooting) denounced this development, saying, "We expected them to throw dirt at us and they are throwing dirt at us." NYPD Internal Affairs Bureau detectives say the dealer's tale has has no direct bearing on the police shooting of Bell, though some legal experts said that it could help the defense by portraying Sean Bell as possibly armed and dangerous.^[35]

[edit] Investigation and criminal indictment

Some activists have called for a special prosecutor in the case, but New York Governor Eliot Spitzer has said he does not see the need for this^[22] although Attorney-General Andrew Cuomo promised to keep a watch on the criminal proceedings. The Queens district attorney's office interviewed over 100 witnesses and presented more than 500 exhibits to a grand jury.^[36] An issue considered by the grand jury was the New York State Penal Code's description of circumstances under which a police officer can use deadly force, "The use of deadly physical force is necessary to defend the police officer or peace officer or another person from what the officer reasonably believes to be the use or imminent use of deadly physical force."^[37][38]

On March 16, 2007, three of the five police officers involved in the shooting were indicted by a grand jury. Officer Gescard Isnora, who fired the first shot, and Officer Michael Oliver, who fired 31 of the 50 shots, face charges of manslaughter, reckless endangerment and assault; while Detective Marc Cooper faces the lesser charge of two counts of reckless endangerment.^[36] All three detectives plead not guilty at the arraignment hearing on March 19, 2007. Detectives Isnora and Oliver were released on bail and Detective Martin on his own recognizance.^[36]

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• Contagious shooting
• Jean-Charles de Menezes
• Amadou Diallo
• Johnny Gammage
• Ousmane Zongo
• Police brutality