3 Detectives Acquitted in Bell Shooting
By MICHAEL WILSON
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 of the prosecution’s witnesses, including Mr. Bell’s friends and the two wounded victims, were simply not believable. “The testimony of those witnesses just didn’t make sense,” he said.
His verdict prompted several supporters of Mr. Bell to storm out of the courtroom, and screams could be heard in the hallway moments later. The three detectives — Gescard F. Isnora, Michael Oliver and Marc Cooper — were escorted out of a side doorway. Outside, a crowd gathered behind police barricades, occasionally shouting, amid a veritable sea of police officers.
The verdict comes 17 months to the day since the Nov. 25, 2006, shooting of Mr. Bell, 23, and his friends, Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield, outside the Club Kalua in Jamaica, Queens, hours before Mr. Bell was to be married.
It was delivered in a packed courtroom and was heard by, among others, the slain man’s parents and his fiancée. The seven-week trial, which ended April 14, was heard by Justice Cooperman in State Supreme Court in Queens after the defendants waived their right to a jury, a strategy some lawyers called risky at the time. But it clearly paid off with Friday’s verdict.
Before rendering his verdict, Justice Cooperman ran through a narrative of the evening, and concluded “the police response with respect to each defendant was not found to be criminal.”
“The people have not proved beyond a reasonable doubt” that each defendant was not justified in shooting, he said, before quickly saying the men were not guilty of all of the eight counts, five felonies and three misdemeanors, against them.
Mr. Bell’s family sat silently as Justice Cooperman spoke from the bench. Behind them, a woman was heard to ask, “Did he just say, ‘Not guilty?’ ”
Roughly 30 court officers stood by, around the courtroom and in the aisles.
Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, speaking at an event in Brooklyn, declined to comment on the verdict, saying the that officers could still face disciplinary action from the department. He did say, however, that the United States attorney’s office had asked him to delay such disciplinary action until it had decided whether or not to pursue federal charges against the officers.
At the same time, he said the police were prepared should any unrest develop.
“We have prepared, we have done some drills and some practice with appropriate units and personnel if there is any violence, but, again, we don’t anticipate violence,” Mr. Kelly said. “There have been no problems. Obviously there will be some people who are disappointed with the verdict. We understand that.”
Detectives Isnora and Oliver had faced the most charges: first- and second-degree manslaughter, with a possible sentence of 25 years in prison; felony assault, first and second degree; and a misdemeanor, reckless endangerment, with a possible one-year sentence. Detective Oliver also faces a second count of first-degree assault. Detective Cooper was charged only with two counts of reckless endangerment.
During the 26 days of testimony, the prosecution sought to show, with an array of 50 witnesses, that the shooting was the act of a frightened, even enraged group of disorganized police officers who began their shift that night hoping to arrest a prostitute or two and, in suspecting Mr. Bell and his friends of possessing a gun, quickly got in over their heads.
“We ask police to risk their lives to protect ours,” said an assistant district attorney, Charles A. Testagrossa, in his closing arguments. “Not to risk our lives to protect their own.”
The defense, through weeks of often heated cross-examinations, their own witnesses and the words of the detectives themselves, portrayed the shooting as the tragic end to a nonetheless justified confrontation, with Detective Isnora having what it called solid reasons to believe he was the only thing standing between Mr. Bell’s car and a drive-by shooting around the corner.
Several witnesses testified that they heard talk of guns in an argument between Mr. Bell and a stranger, Fabio Coicou, outside Kalua, an argument, the defense claimed, that was fueled by bravado and Mr. Bell’s intoxicated state. Defense lawyers pointed their fingers at Mr. Guzman, who, they said, in shouting for Mr. Bell to drive away when Detective Isnora approached, may have instigated his death.
Detective Isnora told grand jurors last year that he clipped his badge to his collar and drew his gun, shouting, “Police! Don’t move!” as he approached Mr. Bell’s Nissan Altima.
Other witnesses, mostly friends of Mr. Bell, said they never heard shouts of “Police!” Mr. Guzman and Mr. Benefield testified that they had no idea that Mr. Guzman was a police officer when he walked up with his gun drawn.
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This news...
just fucked up my morning. How long are we going to take this injustice? How can the judge justify the shooting of unarmed HUMAN BEINGS?
If I were to just say what I
If I were to just say what I really think...the title is a SEVERE understatement...I'd be under 24 hour surveilance.
P6, you already are under 24
P6, you already are under 24 hour surveillance. Any black person as smart, perceptive, technologically knowledgeable, politically outspoken and independent as you are is already on the radar screen. You are right, though. You don't want them following you to the store or placing listening devices in your home.
P6, you already are under 24
I maintain a healthy paranoia.
The day after we learn that
The day after we learn that the U.S. with 5% of the world's population has 25% of the world's prison population in its jail cells, Wesley Snipes is given a three year sentence for failing to file tax returns. What a fucking waste! And now in the Sean Bell case we have yet another example of the American just-us system doing its job of maintaining the status quo of white supremacy.
A black man's life ain't worth spit in this fucked up place.
Absence of justification.
That seems like an impossible task. How do you prove the absence of justification?
When you hold this decision alongside the John White case, the difference in what was demanded of the prosecution is telling.
O - I'm not calling you out
O -
I'm not calling you out but do you really believe that Wesley Snipes was done wrong?
I'm listening to Bill Moyers interview Rev. Jeremiah Wright...
I'm listening to Bill Moyers interview Rev. Jeremiah Wright and he's just awesome.
http://www-tc.pbs.org/moyers/rss/media/BMJ-1203.mp3
He just talked about Psalm 137...
"The people of faith ....have moved from the hatred of armed enemies to the hatred of unarmed innocents... the babies....And, that, my beloved, is a dangerous place to be.
We want revenge, we want paybacks... and we don't care who gets hurt in the process."
See, Rev. Wright makes my heart burn within me. This is how Christianity ought to speak to us. And you know that speech he made about the chickens coming home to roost? He was QUOTING A US AMBASSADOR!!!!
(I know Malcolm X said the same thing in 1963, but Ambassador Peck said this too in 2001)
I have a question: the judge
I have a question: the judge who presided over the trial said that the testimony of the surviving witnesses (The judge did not refer to them as surviving witnesses but since the cops fired 51 rounds into the car they were sitting in and they lived to testify in court it seems fair to call them the surviving witnesses.) simply was not believable. If the judge believes that what he said about the testimony of the surviving witnesses is true, then what is the basis for his accepting the testimony of the cops who fired 51 rounds at four unarmed men sitting in a car? Just asking and kinda scratching my head, that's all.
If the judge believes that
The assumption is that anyone working for the government is doing the right thing.
Or, that black men pose a
Or, that black men pose a sufficient threat simply because they are black men that anyone working for the government who shoots at them is doing the right thing.
black men pose a sufficient
That's a stand-alone proposition.
Cops get the benefit of the doubt on those rare occasions when they shoot white folks too.
I think...it's been so long...
Ourstorian - Ignore my
Ourstorian -
Ignore my question about Wesley Snipes. I just thought about Scooter Libby and how he got to walk for committing perjury.
Well, there was that white
Well, there was that white guy in Utah that got tasered for back talking.
How can the judge justify?
Well, Cobb just did.
Who?
Who?
Well, there was that white
He's still alive.
I'm sure there's an example of cops wilding on some white guy. There must be...
I think you have to watch
I think you have to watch the true crime shows on cable television channels to come up with any examples. There was a white cop in Texas, for example, who kept trying to hit on a white single mom with a teenage son. Mom had zero interest in this fool. He started harassing her son and even set him up for a bust on a contrived weapons charge. Mom still refused to put out. In fact, she filed complaints against him.
The cop eventually told the d.a. an outright lie to get a warrant to enter the woman's home. The cop shot her to death in her bedroom and claimed she had a gun. It was all a lie. His fellow officers did not believe his story and began an investigation. The cop was eventually charged with murder and convicted.
The jury, however, convicted him in such a way that he was allowed to continue to be on streets, although not as a police officer, for eight more years before his appeals were exhausted and he was put in jail. It is hard to put a cop in jail even when the cop is convicted of a serious felony.
Cobb will keep defending
Cobb will keep defending this stuff right up to the time a cop shoots his son or grandson.