‘They killed Sean all over again’
Judge’s ruling sparks national outrage
WASHINGTON (NNPA) - Outrage. That’s perhaps the best word to describe the mood of the family of the late Sean Bell of New York, grassroots activists, and civil rights representatives around the country this week.
“On April 25, 2008, they killed Sean all over again. That’s what it felt like to us.”
Those were the emotionally charged words expressed by Nicole Paultre Bell as she spoke at a press conference immediately following last Friday’s acquittal of the three police officers who killed Bell, her fiancé. He died in a hail of 50 bullets on Nov. 26, 2006, the couple’s wedding day.
“But, I’m still praying for justice,” she said in the televised press conference. “Because it’s not over yet. It’s far from over.”
She was correct.
The next day, she stood alongside New York activist Al Sharpton and led a march and rally protesting the ruling. Then on Sunday, dozens of civil rights leaders gathered to call for public officials to take action against police misuse of force and brutality - an age old problem in the Black community - which is once again center stage.
This time, the protest is focused on the ruling by Queens State Supreme Court Justice Arthur Cooperman, which cleared the three undercover detectives - Gescard F. Isnora, Michael Oliver, and Marc Cooper - on manslaughter and additional charges. The shooting happened near a Queens nightclub, where Bell had just left his bachelor party.
He and two friends - Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield - were found to be unarmed although police claimed they thought someone had moved to pick up a gun. Police said the officers feared for their lives.
Guzman and Benefield, both passengers in the vehicle, were seriously wounded. The officers, who were conducting a prostitution sting, said Bell had tried to drive over a detective when they began shooting.
Those in the courtroom last Friday left outraged after the judge said he simply did not find the testimony of the witnesses to be credible, mainly because of their demeanors on the stand. The controversy, yet another in a string of police brutality cases in recent years, appears to be growing.
“The acquittal of New York police officers in the unprovoked murder of unarmed Sean Bell is yet another example of a pattern and practice of excessive force used by police across the nation on Black people,” said Marc Morial, president and CEO of the National Urban League and chairman of the Black Leadership Forum (BLF), which has a membership of 36 organizations around the country.
Morial was speaking at a press conference at the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network headquarters on Sunday, where BLF members, Sharpton and Bell called on Justice Department and Congress to establish laws with stiff penalties for police brutality.
“The decision in the Sean Bell case was not a miscarriage of justice, but rather an abortion of justice,” Sharpton said.
The BLF members at Sunday’s press conference said they are poised for action. They said they would send a joint letter to the Justice Department this week calling for a full investigation and requesting a meeting with Attorney General Michael Mukasey.
Lawmakers are scrutinizing the case.
U. S. Rep. John Conyers Jr., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and a congressional delegation were scheduled to visit the Bell family on April 28 to discuss the possibility of a complaint of a civil rights violation against Bell. Conyers said he would also go to the spot where the shooting occurred.
A statement issued by the New York delegation of the Congressional Black Caucus and Chairwoman Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick vowed to remain vigilant on the issue.
”We do not accept that this is the end of this case,” it states. “We have joined with the families and their attorneys in filing a compliant with the U.S. Department of Justice requesting an investigation of violations of the civil rights of Sean Bell, Joseph Guzman, and Trent Benefield.”
The Justice Department has announced that its Civil Rights Division, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s New York Field Division will independently review circumstances surrounding the killing.
Southern Christian Leadership Conference President Charles Steele, also a BLF member, says he will take the pressure a step further.
“After we get the Justice Department to address this tragedy, we are going to ask New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly to meet with us about the SCLC’s nonviolence conflict resolution program to train officers in nonviolent conflict resolution in order to prevent the deaths of other Black Americans. This program has worked well in Atlanta, where we are training some 1,700 police officers, and in international markets, where they are seeking peaceful resolutions to end violence. This program has instilled a trust and belief that violence can be eradicated all over the world.”
It hasn’t happened across America. The list of questionable police killings and misuse of force in recent years include:
• Kyle Coppin, 18, an unarmed teen carrying a hairbrush who was shot 10 times Nov. 12, 2007, and then handcuffed by New York City Police officers;
• DeOnte Rawlings, 14, shot in the head in October of 2007 by one of two off duty Washington, D.C. police officers who killed the youth after discovering him on a mini bike that was stolen from one of the officers’ homes. The officers claim DeOnte shot at them, but no gun was found at the scene.
• DeAunta “Tae Tae” Farrow, a 12-year-old West Memphis boy fatally shot by a West Memphis police officer on June 22, 2007. Police said the child, walking with a young cousin, was spotted carrying a toy gun that the officer mistook as real. DeAunta was shot twice by police when they said he did not drop the toy. Some witnesses said the child was only carrying pop and chips.
• Martin Lee Anderson, 14, of Tallahassee, Fla., a sickle cell anemia patient who died in a juvenile boot-camp Jan. 6, 2006 after complaining that he could not breathe as he was roughed up by camp guards who failed to heed his pleas. The guards were later found not guilty in his death.
A 10-foot long banner carried by protestors at the “Enough is Enough Stop Hate Crimes and Police Brutality”, sponsored by the Hip-Hop Caucus in Washington on Nov. 17, 2007 carried the names of more than 1,700 names of people killed by police in recent years.
Sunday’s press conference also included Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.); Melanie Campbell of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, Rev. Lennox Yearwood of the Hip Hop Caucus; Darlene Young of Blacks in Government and Gary Flowers, who is BLF’s executive director and CEO.
Bell says she will do what she must in order to remain committed to justice for the father of her two children. “At every meeting, at every march, at every rally, I’m going to be right up front,” she says.
The CBC statement encourages supporters to join her: ”We must all remain committed to creating a justice system that is fair to all and building police-community relations that respect the lives and well-being of all.”
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.