Prometheus 6

It doesn't even matter if there was a fourth guy...and apparently there wasn't.

There was no fourth man anywhere in sight when Undercover Mike reloaded so he could keep shooting.

Police "seem hellbent on finding a phantom gunman who didn't exist," King said.

Police picked up the son of the Rev. Lester Williams, the pastor who conducted Bell's funeral, for questioning at 6 a.m. Thursday, using an unpaid $25 ticket as an excuse, King said.

Williams later said that investigators "definitely did strong-arm" his son over why he visited the two wounded men, Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield, in the hospital.

Critics warn of backlash in NYC shooting
Updated 12/2/2006 4:48 AM ET
By Tom Hays, Associated Press

NEW YORK — Officers have raided at least one home, picked up the son of a clergyman for an unpaid ticket and scoured vacant lots with a leave-no-stone-unturned intensity akin to a manhunt in a murder case. But the search has nothing to do with a fugitive killer.

Instead, police are trying to locate a key witness — and perhaps a missing gun — in hopes of explaining why five police officers unleashed a 50-shot barrage that killed a man on his wedding day outside a strip club last week.

Police critics on Friday warned of a backlash: They claim the search has created a climate of fear in a community already outraged by the death of Sean Bell, 23, and the wounding of two other unarmed men who attended his bachelor party at the club.

They say police have concocted a "phantom gunman" in a desperate effort to show that officers were justified in opening fire.

"This kind of police conduct is frightening, and it serves as a chilling impact on those witnesses who want to come forward and simply tell what they saw, what they heard, so that justice can be served," said Charlie King, an attorney who said he represents several potential witnesses, including a man who could be the one intensely sought by police.