NYPD Bullet kills groom

[Police kill innocent groom]

NYPD bullet kills groom on wedding day

NEW YORK - Police fired 50 rounds Saturday at a car of unarmed men leaving a bachelor party at a strip club, killing the groom on his wedding day in a shooting that drew a furious outcry from family members and community leaders.
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The spray of bullets hit the car 21 times, after the vehicle rammed into an undercover officer and then an unmarked NYPD minivan twice, police said. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly would not say if the collisions were what prompted police to open fire.

It was too early to say whether the shooting was justified, Kelly said.

Police thought one of the men in the car might have had a gun. But police found no weapons.

"Although it is too early to draw conclusions about this morning's shootings ... we know that the NYPD officers on the scene had reason to believe that an altercation involving a firearm was about to happen and were trying to stop it," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in a statement.

Kelly said the incident stemmed from an undercover operation inside the strip club. Seven officers in plain clothes were investigating the Kalua Cabaret, and five were involved in the shooting. The gunfire also hit nearby homes and a train station, though no residents were injured.

A veteran officer fired his weapon 31 times, emptying two full magazines, Kelly said. All the officers carried 9 mm handguns.

The groom, who was driving, was identified as Sean Bell, 23. Joseph Guzman, 31, was in the front seat and was shot at least 11 times. Trent Benefield, 23, who was in the back seat, was hit three times. Both men were taken to Mary Immaculate Hospital. Guzman was listed in critical condition and Benefield was in stable condition.

Kelly said there may have been a fourth person in the car who fled the scene.

Three officers, including the officer hit by the car, were treated and released. Another detective remained hospitalized for blood pressure, Kelly said.

Abraham Kamara, 38, who lives a few blocks from the club, said he was getting ready for work at about 4 a.m. when he heard bursts of gunfire.

"First it was like four shots," he said. "And then it was like pop-pop-pop like 12 times."

A grand jury was investigating the incident. Kelly said none of the five veteran officers had ever discharged their weapons in the line of duty. He has not been able to interview the officers because the district attorney must first complete an investigation, he said.

The undercover officers were inside the club to document illicit activity, Kelly said. With one more violation the club would be shut down, Kelly said.

He said the establishment has a "chronic history of narcotics, prostitution and weapons complaints."

The shooting drew angry protests from family members and the Rev.
Al Sharpton.

Sharpton went to the hospitals where the men were taken and afterward held news conferences. At Jamaica Hospital, the civil rights advocate stood with about two dozen members of Bell's and his fiancee's family.

"I will stand with this family," he said. "This stinks. Something about the story being told did not seem right."

Sharpton said Bell and his fiancee had two children, ages 3 years and 5 months.

At Mary Immaculate Hospital, Sharpton said he was outraged to find the survivors handcuffed to their hospital beds. He said Guzman suffered 17 wounds, though it was unclear how many were bullet wounds, and Benefield was shot three times.

"We're not anti-police ... we're anti-police brutality," he said.

The two were unshackled later Saturday and have not been charged with a crime.

Robert Porter, who identified himself as Bell's first cousin, said he was supposed to be a DJ at the wedding. He said about 250 people were invited and were flying in from all over the country. He said his cousin wasn't the type to confront police and that he was "on the straight and narrow."

"I still don't want to believe it," Porter said, "a beautiful day like this, and he was going to have a beautiful wedding, he was going to live forever with his wife and children. And this happened."

In 1999, police killed Amadou Diallo, an unarmed West African immigrant who was shot 19 times in the Bronx. The four officers in that case were acquitted of criminal charges.

And in 2003, Ousmane Zongo, 43, a native of the western African country of Burkina Faso who repaired art and musical instruments in a Manhattan warehouse, was shot to death during a police raid. Zongo was hit four times, twice in the back.

[WaTcHeR]

11.26.2006 - New York - The medical examiner has released its report. The question on everyone's mind: How is that five police officers showered a group of unarmed men with 50 bullets?

Our team coverage continues now with Lucy Yang. She has the latest information on the investigation from Jamaica.

Crime scene investigators were at the scene a short while ago gathering evidence.

Candles were lit for the shooting victims tonight, but only if it were that easy to shed light on the troubling killing.

The medical examiner has released its report. According to autopsy, 23-year-old Sean Bell was hit four times on the right side of his neck, his right shoulder, right hip, and right arm. He died of perforation to larynx, lungs and liver.

The young father of two was just wrapping up the bachelor's party at the topless club in Queens, and was hours away from walking down the aisle with his high school sweetheart Saturday when tragically he got caught in a police operation.

The Queens vice unit, out to clamp down on prostitutes and drugs somehow got the bachelor's party in their cross-hairs. They fired 50 shots at Bell and his unarmed friends. 31-year-old Joseph Guzman was hit at least 11 times, left in critical condition. 23-year-old Trent Benefield was shot three times.

Authorities say Bell drove into unmarked police minivan twice, almost ran over an undercover police officer, and went up on a sidewalk smashing a locked gate.

Today, the group 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care condemned the police shooting.

Retired lieutenant Julian Harper used to work in the same squad and says procedures dictate that undercover cops who were in the club and who may have been drinking as part of the role playing should not be involved in the enforcement outside of the club.

"They are not to become involved or engaged in any enforcement activity unless it is a dire need at that particular moment," Mr. Harper said.

100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care is now calling for a change in policy for undercover cops, forcing them to take Breathalyzer tests after being involved in a fatal shooting.
As for a time line, it could take several weeks before detectives can speak directly with the officers involved because of the grand jury now being convened by the Queens' district attorney.

abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=local&id=4797954

[WaTcHeR]

11.27.2006 - NEW YORK - Mayor Michael Bloomberg was "deeply disturbed" by the barrage of gunfire unleashed by officers in a weekend shooting that killed a groom on his wedding day, the mayor said Monday.

"I can tell you that it is to me unacceptable or inexplicable how you can have 50-odd shots fired, but that's up to the investigation to find out what really happened," Bloomberg said after meeting with community leaders at City Hall.

Bloomberg was joined by Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, the Rev. Al Sharpton, Rep. Charles Rangel and several other officials at the meeting.

Sharpton called it a "very candid, a very blunt meeting." He said the message to Bloomberg was: "This city must show moral outrage that 50 shots were fired on three unarmed men."

Bloomberg was steadfast in his support for Kelly, who has been denounced by some community leaders over the shooting.

"I think he's the best police commissioner the city has ever had," Bloomberg said. "Nobody takes this more seriously than Commissioner Kelly and I do."

Police fired an estimated 50 rounds at the groom, Sean Bell, 23, and two other unarmed men in a car early Saturday, hours before he was to have married the mother of his two children.

Five officers were placed on paid administrative leave and stripped of their guns, said Paul Browne, chief spokesman for the NYPD. Police and prosecutors promised a full investigation.

"This warrants an answer," Rangel said as he arrived for the meeting. "Not just to the families of those that were shot and killed but to the people of the city of New York."

On Sunday, several hundred people held a vigil for Bell, some shouting "No justice, no peace!" and demanding Kelly's ouster.

Kelly has said police shot at the car after it drove forward and struck an undercover officer and an unmarked police minivan. The information was based on interviews with witnesses and two officers who did not fire their weapons, he said.

However, Trini Wright, a dancer at the strip club where Bell's bachelor party was held, told the Daily News she was going to a diner with the men and was putting her makeup bag in the trunk of their car when the police minivan appeared.

"The minivan came around the corner and smashed into their car. And they (the police) jumped out shooting," Wright, 28, told the newspaper for Monday editions. "No 'stop.' No 'freeze.' No nothing."

Kelly had said Saturday it was too early to say whether the shooting was justified. He said it was unclear whether the officers, who were in plain clothes, identified themselves before firing.

Bell's fiancee, Nicole Paultre, made a quiet visit to the site of his shootings before dawn Monday, lighting candles clustered around a photograph of the smiling couple with one of their daughters.

The shootings occurred after 4 a.m. Saturday outside the Kalua Cabaret in Queens. Kelly said the confrontation stemmed from an undercover operation by seven officers investigating the club.

Bell was struck twice. Joseph Guzman, 31, was shot at least 11 times, and Trent Benefield, 23, was hit three times. Guzman was in critical condition Monday and Benefield was stable.

The officers' shots struck the men's car 21 times. They also hit nearby homes and shattered windows at a train station, though no residents were injured.

Police thought one of the men in the car might have had a gun, but investigators found no weapons. It was unclear what prompted police to open fire, Kelly said.

According to Kelly, the groom was involved in a verbal dispute outside the club, and one of his friends referred to a gun.

An undercover officer walked closely behind Bell and his friends as they headed for their car. As he walked toward the front of the vehicle, the car drove forward, striking the officer and minivan, Kelly said.

That officer was apparently the first to open fire, Kelly said. He had served on the force for five years. One 12-year veteran fired his weapon 31 times, emptying two full magazines, Kelly said.

It was the first time any of the officers, all of whom carried 9 mm handguns, had been involved in a shooting, he said.

At some point, Bell backed the car onto a sidewalk, hitting a building gate, police said. He then drove forward, striking the police vehicle a second time, Kelly said.

The department's policy prohibits shooting at moving vehicles states "unless deadly force is being used against the police officers or another person present, by means other than a moving vehicle."

This isn't the first time the NYPD has come under scrutiny over officer-involved shootings.

In 1999, police killed Amadou Diallo, an unarmed immigrant from Guinea in western Africa who was shot 19 times. The four officers in that case were acquitted of criminal charges. And in 2003, Ousmane Zongo, a native of Burkina Faso in western Africa, was hit four times, twice in the back. In that case, one officer was convicted of criminally negligent homicide, but acquitted of the more serious charge of second-degree manslaughter.

Rangel said the latest shooting "reminds me of a tragedy that took place with Mr. Diallo. And we can't have that. We can't have that."

[KC]

NEW YORK • On the day his honeymoon was to have started, Sean Bell's memory and the manner of his death — shot, unarmed, by police — dominated the latest outcry against city officers' use of deadly force.

Several hundred people held a vigil for Bell on Sunday, some shouting "No justice, no peace!" and demanding the ouster of Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. Many counted off to 50, the number of rounds estimated to have been fired by police at Bell, 23, and two other unarmed men in a car early on Saturday, hours before he was to have married the mother of his two children.

The five officers were placed on paid administrative leave and stripped of their guns, said Paul Browne, chief spokesman for the NYPD. Police and prosecutors promised a full investigation, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Kelly planned to meet with community leaders at City Hall yesterday.

None of that stemmed the fury of a community outraged by the shootings. "We cannot allow this to continue to happen," the Rev Al Sharpton said at the gathering outside Mary Immaculate Hospital, where one of the two wounded men was in critical condition. "We've got to understand that all of us were in that car."

Relatives of the men attended the vigil and rally but none spoke publicly. Kelly has said police shot at the car after it drove forward and struck an undercover officer and an unmarked police minivan.
The information was based on interviews with witnesses and two officers who did not fire their weapons, he said.

However, Trini Wright, a dancer at the strip club where Bell's bachelor party was held, told the Daily News she was going to a diner with the men and was putting her make-up bag in the trunk of their car when the police minivan appeared.

"The minivan came around the corner and smashed into their car. And they (the police) jumped out shooting," Wright, 28, told the newspaper. "No ‘stop.' No ‘freeze.' No nothing."

Kelly had said on Saturday it was too early to say whether the shooting was justified.

[WaTcHeR]

11.28.2006 - New York - WABC, November 29, 2006) - The family of a man gunned down by police will make their first visit to the scene of the shooting in Queens this morning. Sean Bell was killed just hours before his wedding, when undercover officers fired dozens of rounds outside a strip club.

Eyewitness News reporter Lisa Colagrossi is in Jamaica, Queens with the latest.
Later on today, Sean Bell's parents will visit the makeshift memorial at the scene of the deadly shooting for the first time. They will be accompanied by the Rev. Al sharpton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

Behind the political turmoil and community outrage, the search for evidence goes on.

Two dozen detectives worked the streets around the "Kalua" cabaret, last night, searching for a gun which may have been nothing more than an empty threat.

The undercover officer who fired the first shot early Saturday reportedly heard Bell's friend, Joseph Guzman, threaten to get a gun during a closing-time argument outside the topless bar.

That's why the officer followed the men. But since Bell's death, there has reportedly been no sign of a gun.

William Bell, Victim's Father: "They just killed my son. For what reason? I don't think they even know," he said.

Read more of our interview with William Bell What investigators reportedly have found is a disturbing chain of events: Undercover officers in the club, not coordinating with officers outside, posted in a car. And when the action moved outside, communications became an even greater issue. The officer who followed Bell to his car reportedly lost contact with his partner. Investigators say the partner was trying to bust a hooker outside the club when he heard the shooting start. His call for assistance was the confusing first sign of trouble for their backup officers.

The investigation is moving forward toward a grand jury. And the Eyewitness News Investigators have exclusively reviewed details of the incident report compiled by police investigators from over 40 witnesses to the shooting, and two officers who were there but who didn't fire their guns.

In it, an undercover officer standing outside Club Kalua told police investigators that he heard Sean Bell, now dead, get into an argument with an unidentified male, who "placed his right hand inside of his jacket pocket, simulating that he had a weapon. Another male in the group, later positively identified as Joseph Guzman, made the statement, "Yo, get my gun, get my gun." Mr. Bell was also overhead stating to his friends, Let's f--- him up, referring to an unidentified male black."

Minutes later, 50 shots fired -- 31 fired by Detective Mike Oliver. When a sergeant asked Oliver if he had discharged his weapon, the report states "the detective replied that he was unsure if he had discharged any rounds."

Read more exclusive details from the Eyewitness News Investigators

On Monday, the mayor called the shooting "excessive" and met with community leaders in Queens, he wasn't backing away from that statement.

All of the officers involved in the shooting have agreed to testify before a Queens grand jury without immunity.

The NAACP has said if there is no indictment they will ask the feds to appoint a special prosecutor.

abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=local&id=4805603

[StandTall]

The "gun threat" MAY not even have occurred, crooked cops tend to fib when covering their a*s. I know this from experience and was found NOT GUILTY of every single lie police told in my case: 6 false charges by cops this year where they said I attacked them, when in reality they attacked me after I told their SWAT team they had guns drawn on an unarmed man, and no gun was involved at all. I was a witness ironically to the incident where the other person claimed a "gun" was threatened but it NEVER HAPPENED, this was a verbal altercation between two worked up men. Maybe the guy who said that was simply scared and so worked up he may have believed one thing when another thing was happening, maybe he was covering his a*s for swinging a stick at our heads while freaking out by making the other guy look like he threatened a weapon to justify his actions as self defense. (I'll never know why he said there was a gun when there wasn't.) I was only the sole objective witness and told the truth to make sure the misunderstanding didn't prove to be lethal. Of course no gun was ever found. The beating and illegal arrest I took from cops was unprovoked by any illegal action on my part, and there were witnesses. I was already found not guilty so please don't question the veracity here, I have no reason to fib and post this because there are similarities in the instances and it makes me wonder if I prevented an unecessary shooting that day of cops on an unarmed civilian, if so, it was worth the beating and nightmare I took for speaking up.

Now the groom was driving, yet he received all the injuries to his RIGHT SIDE? Were the officers shooting through the passenger window or was he twisted toward the front or back of the car? If he was twisted, how was he driving? Maybe he was using his vehicle in self-defense after someone pulled a gun on him. Did he REALLY know they were officers? Wait to hear what his groomsmen say on this matter and don't believe media hype.

Can't wait to hear from the groomsmen and witnesses on the street, that will be REAL perspective.

[WaTcHeR]

Arrests provide lead on missing witness in shooting


11.30.2006 - Investigators closed in Thursday on a key missing witness in the fatal police shooting of an unarmed man with the arrest of four people they say have provided clues to the witness' identity.

The arrests were made Wednesday at a house in Queens where police found a loaded semiautomatic handgun and a small amount of drugs, said Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.

Kelly said the raid was related to the investigation of the chaotic police shooting that left 23-year-old Sean Bell dead and two other unarmed men wounded, but refused to elaborate.

A law enforcement official told The Associated Press that the arrests had produced information about the identity of a fourth man who was with the three victims when five officers fired 50 shots at their car, but then disappeared. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation had not been completed.

Investigators believe the mysterious fourth man and another missing witness, if found, could provide key answers to what prompted the shooting.

The shooting on Saturday has ignited outrage in New York, and civil rights activists Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton visited the scene of the gunfire Wednesday to console the victims’ relatives. Gov. George Pataki and governor-elect Eliot Spitzer also weighed in on the case Wednesday, saying they believed the shooting was excessive.

“Obviously, 50 bullets fired into or at an unarmed individual in New York is excessive force,” Pataki said in a news conference, via satellite from Kuwait. Sens. Charles Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., called for “an aggressive, impartial investigation to ferret out the facts.” Meanwhile, law enforcement officials provided partial descriptions of the two missing witnesses and details about their possible roles, based on accounts from undercover officers and at least one civilian.

One of the missing witnesses was last seen dressed in black, standing in front of a sport utility vehicle with silver rims and exchanging glares and insults with Bell.

Another man was last seen wearing a beige jacket and running away from Bell’s car as five officers unleashed a 50-bullet barrage.

Union officials have suggested that the fourth man could have fled with a gun — a scenario investigators haven’t ruled out.

According to an undercover officer, the other witness — the man in black — argued with Bell and his companions as they exited a Queen strip club where Bell was having a bachelor party. The officer was part of a vice team investigating complaints about prostitution and drug dealing at the club.

Outside the club, the man in black reached into his pocket as if he had a weapon as Bell challenged him to a fight and one of Bell’s companions, Joseph Guzman, said, “Yo, get my gun,” the officials said, citing the undercover detective’s account. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation has not been completed.

The officials said the exchange prompted a second undercover detective to follow Bell and three other men as they walked away toward their car, apparently suspecting the men meant to arm themselves and attack the man in black.

The first undercover officer said he lost sight of the group — including the fourth man he described as wearing a beige jacket — as they rounded a corner with the second undercover trailing them on foot. Moments later, the second undercover officer started shooting at the car when Bell, while trying to drive away, bumped him and smashed into an unmarked police van.

Through his lawyer, the detective has insisted that he clearly identified himself as a police officer as he tried to stop them. He also has said he spotted Guzman, then sitting in the passenger seat, make a sudden move for his waistband before he and four other officers fired a total of 50 rounds.

The third victim, Trent Benefield, told police in a brief interview at the hospital that there was never a fourth person. He also claimed Bell became spooked and tried to take off because he didn’t know the undercover was a police officer.

But the shooter insists that the group he followed numbered four, and that at some point he saw the fourth man run away from the car and disappear into the night.

“There was a fourth person involved — no doubt,” his attorney, Philip Karasyk, said Wednesday.

Another witness seems to back the account: She has told police she looked out the window of her nearby home after hearing gunfire and spotted someone running away from the direction of the shooting scene. She too described a man wearing a beige jacket, the officials said.

A law enforcement official close to the case said prosecutors are waiting to examine 911 calls, police radio communications and ballistic reports, which could determine the origin of the deadly shots. Despite a clamor for answers about what happened, the official said it is a complex investigation that requires thoroughness.

The community outrage over the shooting was evident Wednesday in signs taped up on a brick wall of an auto body shop near the shuttered strip club. “Death to Police Brutality and Murder,” said one hand-printed sign. “Off the Pigs Who Shoot Our Kids,” said another.

Bell’s funeral is scheduled for Friday at the same church where he was to be married. His companions remain hospitalized.

www.nydailynews.com/front/story/475979p-400404c.html

[KC]

NEW YORK (AP) - A New York City man gunned down in a spray of 50 police bullets was buried Saturday as hundreds of angry demonstrators honoured him with a moment of silence before going jaw-to-jaw with police in a bitter confrontation outside a Queens borough precinct house.

The demonstrators taunted police, standing just centimetres away from a row of officers and daring the police to lay a hand on them. Some in the crowd held signs reading Death to the Pigs and Shoot Back.

"Fifty shots from the New York cops!" the crowd chanted before the moment of silence.

"We didn't come here to start any violence," said Malik Zulu Shabazz, a black nationalist leader.

"The New York police started the violence."

The "March of Outrage" organized by the New Black Panther party came one week after 23-year-old Sean Bell was killed and his friends Trent Benefield and Joseph Guzman were wounded when police opened fire on the unarmed trio outside a strip club. The demonstration Saturday began outside the club, moved around the corner to the site of the shooting and then continued to the precinct.

Starr Nelson, a Queens woman in the crowd with two sons in their 20s, said relations between the police and local residents were antagonistic even before the shooting.

"It could have been my son," she said.

"(The police) need to start seeing people as people, not animals. You don't even shoot at an animal 50 times."

At a local hospital, Guzman was upgraded from critical to stable condition Saturday and Benefield remained stable.

Outside the facility, a lawyer for the two reiterated they do not believe there was a fourth person in the car before the shooting as police suggest and an undercover officer did not identify himself and flash his badge to the men in the car.

"Neither of the victims who are hospitalized, their bodies riddled with bullets, saw a badge or heard a command that the man who was holding a gun was a police officer," lawyer Sanford Rubenstein said.

It is still unclear what prompted officers to fire on Bell's vehicle Nov. 25, but police apparently feared one man in the group was about to go for a gun. The unarmed victims were black; the five officers were black, Hispanic and white.

Queens District Attorney Richard Brown is investigating the case and civil rights leaders including Rev. Al Sharpton have called for murder charges.

On Friday, an overflow crowd of tearful mourners paid their respects to Bell inside the Community Church of Christ in Queens. Bell and his two friends were celebrating his bachelor party before the shooting.

[WaTcHeR]

Survivors Dispute NYPD Account of Queens Shooting

11.06.2006 - NEW YORK -- One of two men wounded in the hail of 50 police bullets that killed their unarmed friend following a bachelor party has for the first time publicly disputed the police version of the incident.

In an interview Tuesday at a Queens hospital, Trent Benefield was asked if it was true that a fourth companion, possibly armed, fled the scene of the Nov. 25 shooting outside a Queens strip club.

"No,'' he said in a soft voice. "No fourth man.''

Benefield, 23, who was shot three times in the legs, was released from the hospital on Tuesday and was scheduled to meet with the Rev. Al Sharpton, according to Sharpton's office.

"My friend's dead,'' Benefield said in an interview with NY1. "I'm shot up. We need justice.''

Lawyers for Benefield and the still-hospitalized Joseph Guzman, 31, say both men also have claimed that none of the five undercover and plainclothes officers identified themselves as police before opening fire. The barrage of bullets killed 23-year-old Sean Bell on the morning of his wedding.

The officers "never'' identified themselves, Guzman said, speaking from his bed at Mary Immaculate Hospital in a separate interview published Tuesday by the New York Daily News.

About Bell, Guzman said, "I took 16 shots, but a superstar died that night. I loved him.''

Guzman also called on New Yorkers outraged by the shooting to exercise restraint.

"No violence, man,'' he said. "No violence. Not in my name.''

Police have said an undercover officer -- part of a team investigating the club for prostitution and drugs -- began following Bell and his friends to their car after overhearing Guzman threaten to retrieve a gun in a dispute with another man.

As the car started to pull away, it bumped the officer and then smashed into an unmarked police van, police said.

Through his lawyer, the undercover officer has insisted he believed Guzman was pulling a gun when he opened fire on the car; no gun was found. He and other witnesses also have said there was a fourth man in or near the car who escaped on foot.

The five officers have been put on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of a grand jury investigation by the Queens district attorney's office.

www.rawstory.com/showoutarticle.php?src=http%3A%2F%2F1010wins.com%2Fpages%2F142701.php%3FcontentType%3D4%26contentId%3D253516

[KC]

NEW YORK - Black New Yorkers angry at the police killing of a groom on his wedding day took their demands for justice to the city's financial district on Thursday but failed in their threat to shut down Wall Street.

Several hundred protesters gathered a few blocks from Wall Street, under tight security, to call for New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly to resign and the officers involved in the shooting of Sean Bell, 23, to be charged.

"If we don't get indictments, there's going to be an explosion," New York City council member Charles Barron told the crowd. "Some people don't want to march anymore, they're ready to take action."

Bell was out for a bachelor party when he was shot and killed on November 25, just hours before he was to marry the mother of his two children. Two of his friends were wounded by some of the 50 bullets police fired at the three black, unarmed men.

The District Attorney in New York's Queens borough is investigating the incident.

Police have said the officers opened fire as the men were in a car outside a strip club, apparently in the belief one of them had gone to fetch a gun to settle a dispute at the club.

Leaders of New York's black community have vowed protests until they see justice for Bell and have already held two rallies, including a march by several thousand people down Fifth Avenue on Saturday.

Organizers said another protest was being planned for the United Nations headquarters in January.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said it was "unacceptable or inexplicable" that 50 shots were fired, while Kelly has set up a panel to review the police department's undercover operations and policy.

today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=domesticNews&

[WaTcHeR]

01.10.2007 - District Attorney Stalls on Interviewing Shooter Cops

It lingers in our psyche as insult upon injury. Under their union contract, New York City police officers were given 48 hours to confer with a union representative or a lawyer before they could be made to answer to the Internal Affairs Division. To those of us concerned with police brutality, it was a poke in the eye: two whole days to come up with a story that would fit with the public facts but excuse any police misconduct.

But the notorious 48-hour rule is no longer in force. It never had the force of law; it was only a provision in the union contract. The city sought to take it off the table in negotiations with the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association (PBA) and it won before the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB). Sensing its loss of privilege, the PBA appealed the PERB decision all the way to the state’s highest court. It lost in March 2006. The Court of Appeals said that the need for “strong disciplinary authority for those in charge of police forces” outweighs the policy of encouraging collective bargaining.

But despite the demise of the 48-hour rule, not all of the five officers involved in the shooting of Sean Bell have yet been questioned by Internal Affairs. On Dec. 29, one detective was questioned by the Queens district attorney. He testified without immunity against possible later charges. Another has said he would testify to a grand jury, a sign that he believes his conduct is justifiable. The other three are keeping their options open, as is their right unless and until District Attorney Richard Brown decides to charge them with a crime. But nothing prevents the DA from interviewing each of the officers as witnesses while the events are fresh in their mind. The right against self-incrimination only applies if and when suspicion begins to focus on an individual officer and he becomes a target of a criminal investigation.

Why hasn’t District Attorney Brown interviewed all of the officers involved in the shooting of Sean Bell on Nov. 25? The only explanation is that the DA lacks the political will to scrutinize the conduct of the officers of the NYPD. Assistant district attorneys rely on cops each and every day to determine what charges to bring and to help them prove their cases. Prosecutors are reluctant to bite the hand that feeds them information, especially as they become emotionally invested in a case.

Civil rights activists are correct to call for a special, independent prosecutor to eliminate this institutional conflict of interest. The governor is permitted to remove the district attorney in a specific case and replace him with his attorney general.

Outgoing National Lawyers Guild New York Chapter President Marty Stolar notes that this power was used by George Pataki in 1996 to remove Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson from a case because Johnson said he would not ask for the death penalty. Elliot Spitzer should consider intervening in the Bell case to ensure that all of the evidence comes out. This would be a fitting beginning for a man in whom many have invested their hopes for justice.

www.indypendent.org/?p=707