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No, the Cops Didn’t Murder Sean Bell
http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon2006-12-04hm.html ^ | Heather Mac Donald

Posted on 12/04/2006 12:20:29 PM PST by ventanax5

New York’s anti-cop forces have roared back to life, thanks to a fatal police shooting of an unarmed man a week ago. The press is once again fawning over Al Sharpton, Herbert Daughtry, Charles Barron, and sundry other hate-mongers in and out of city government as they accuse the police of widespread mistreatment of blacks and issue barely veiled threats of riots if they do not get “justice.”

The allegation that last weekend’s shooting was racially motivated is preposterous. A group of undercover officers working in a gun- and drug-plagued strip joint in Queens had good reason to believe that a party leaving the club was armed and about to shoot an adversary. When one of the undercovers identified himself as an officer, the car holding the party twice tried to run him down. The officer started firing while yelling to the car’s occupants: “Let me see your hands.” His colleagues, believing they were under attack, fired as well, eventually shooting off 50 rounds and killing the driver, Sean Bell. No gun was found in the car, but witnesses and video footage confirm that a fourth man in the party fled the scene once the altercation began. Bell and the other men with him all had been arrested for illegal possession of guns in the past; one of Bell’s companions that night, Joseph Guzman, had spent considerable time in prison, including for an armed robbery in which he shot at his victim.

(Excerpt) Read more at city-journal.org ...


TOPICS: Front Page News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: donutwatch; josephguzman; leo; nyc; seanbell
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To: diefree

hahaha.. nothings faster than the American Capitalist.

Gotta love it.


21 posted on 12/04/2006 1:02:25 PM PST by Cap'n Crunch
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To: Sword_Svalbardt

It sure wouldn't be the first time the NYPD shot an unarmed man in an undercover operation gone awry. See "Diallo, Amadou" and "Dorismond, Patrick" for examples of this.


22 posted on 12/04/2006 1:02:34 PM PST by Alberta's Child (Can money pay for all the days I lived awake but half asleep?)
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To: Sword_Svalbardt

The more I hear about crime in the big cities the more I wonder what has happened to the real men in our society.

We do not tolerate this type of crap anywhere near our home in the sticks.I firmly believe if groups of men would police those city neighborhoods and take out the trash it would be cleaned up real quick.


23 posted on 12/04/2006 1:04:53 PM PST by liberty or death
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To: wideawake

Not necessarily. One RPG would have done the job.


24 posted on 12/04/2006 1:05:13 PM PST by sgtbono2002 (The fourth estate is a fifth column.)
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To: Alberta's Child

The weapon was a car. Hello!!!!!

What article did you read? People get shot at all the time, because like the idiots they are, they choose to try and use their vehicle as a weapon.

No weapon found? Hell, the weapon had his fingerprints all over the steering wheel.

SS


25 posted on 12/04/2006 1:05:27 PM PST by Sword_Svalbardt (Sword Svalbardt)
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To: liberty or death; Victoria Delsoul
Remember -- you're talking about a city that has basically functioned as a police state for decades. A 911 system wasn't enough in New York City, so they instituted a 311 system to deal with calls from city residents trying to find their way through the city government's bureaucratic maze for "non-emergency" situations.

At any rate, there is no reason to expect anything remotely resembling "real men" in a city that was one of the first to ban smoking in private establishments and is soon going to impose dietary restrictions on restaurants, too.

26 posted on 12/04/2006 1:08:57 PM PST by Alberta's Child (Can money pay for all the days I lived awake but half asleep?)
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To: Alberta's Child
(1) Bell was armed.

(2) If Diallo had bothered to learn a few rudimentary phrases of English during his illegal stay in the US he would be in one piece today.

(3) If Dorismond had not committed assault against an undercover police officer, he would be in one piece today.

Which falsified Sharpton media event are you going to trundle out next? Eleanor Bumpurs?

27 posted on 12/04/2006 1:09:04 PM PST by wideawake ("The nation which forgets its defenders will itself be forgotten." - Calvin Coolidge)
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To: liberty or death

We do not tolerate this type of crap anywhere near our home in the sticks.I firmly believe if groups of men would police those city neighborhoods and take out the trash it would be cleaned up real quick...





Well, you do have meth labs out in the sticks along with all varieties of growers.


28 posted on 12/04/2006 1:12:06 PM PST by durasell (!)
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To: Alberta's Child
Remember -- you're talking about a city that has basically functioned as a police state for decades.

Plenty of New York residents have escaped actual police states and are delighted to live in NYC precisely because it is the opposite of what they have endured.

Describing NYC as a police state is ridiculous.

Life in NYC is overregulated in a number of respects, but the rule of law prevails.

29 posted on 12/04/2006 1:12:22 PM PST by wideawake ("The nation which forgets its defenders will itself be forgotten." - Calvin Coolidge)
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To: Alberta's Child

In the Diallo case it wasn't an "undercover" operation. It was the SCU street crime unit looking for a man who had committed 51 rapes in the area.

The SCU no longer exists and NYC is experiencing a rise in crime because of it.


30 posted on 12/04/2006 1:12:37 PM PST by diefree
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To: sodpoodle
A group of undercover officers working in a gun- and drug-plagued strip joint in Queens had good reason to believe that a party leaving the club was armed and about to shoot an adversary.

They had been undercover for months trying to bust this club with no results. This was the last night of their operation and at 4am, they finally got the bad element at the club who were just there for a bachelor party?

As far as the supposed gun, one of the cops claims one of the eight men at the club said something like "Yo, get my gun" which indicated he wasn't carrying the weapon. And five of the eight men were not in this car. Furthermore, these men were shot a block away from the club, clearly having no intention of engaging in illegal activity at the club or having committed any crime while at the club. Beyond that, the undercovers had not alerted the other police in the neighborhood that they were about to make a bust or had probable cause for an arrest.
31 posted on 12/04/2006 1:15:18 PM PST by George W. Bush
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To: George W. Bush

There's more to the story than that, there was something about a prostitute and the undercover was going to arrest her outside. Also, there had been one man in the club with a gun. I don't believe he was involved in the subsequent event.


32 posted on 12/04/2006 1:20:30 PM PST by diefree
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To: George W. Bush
They had been undercover for months trying to bust this club with no results. This was the last night of their operation

What a load of garbage.

Are you Charles Barron's press agent?

33 posted on 12/04/2006 1:20:35 PM PST by wideawake ("The nation which forgets its defenders will itself be forgotten." - Calvin Coolidge)
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To: wideawake
I'd consider the Diallo case a special circumstance for the reason you mentioned (the fact that he was an illegal alien makes his demise pretty much inconsequential for the most part). The other two cases involved undercover police officers dealing with "civilians" who may or may not have known that they were undercover police officers.

The Dorismond case was particularly instructive in the way it highlighted the potential idiocy of an undercover operation . . .

There is no way to justify a police shooting of a person who assaulted an undercover officer who tried to sell drugs to him. Remember -- the follow-up investigation of that incident revealed that Dorismond probably had no idea the guy was an undercover cop.

34 posted on 12/04/2006 1:20:42 PM PST by Alberta's Child (Can money pay for all the days I lived awake but half asleep?)
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To: ventanax5

The reaction by the Cops is beginning to make a lot of sense IMHO.

A vehicle has been used as a lethal weapon, more than once.


35 posted on 12/04/2006 1:21:00 PM PST by F.J. Mitchell ( Is not death also victory in a war against an abomination so vile you could never live with it?)
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To: wideawake
New York City has about 40,000 police officers today, which means the city's police force -- in a city that covers only 321 square miles -- is almost one-third the size of the entire U.S. military contingent in Iraq today.

In addition, the fact that constitutional rights are abrogated in New York City as a matter of course (see Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution) would seem to support my contention that the place is a police state.

36 posted on 12/04/2006 1:24:29 PM PST by Alberta's Child (Can money pay for all the days I lived awake but half asleep?)
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To: ventanax5
When one of the undercovers identified himself as an officer, the car holding the party twice tried to run him down.

Every time that happens to me, I do the same thing.

Just sayin'...

37 posted on 12/04/2006 1:25:44 PM PST by Publius6961 (MSM: Israelis are killed by rockets; Lebanese are killed by Israelis.)
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To: diefree

Most Americans would suggest that an armed citizenry would be a far more effective -- and constitutionally legitimate -- way of dealing with 51 rapes than a "Street Crimes Unit."


38 posted on 12/04/2006 1:25:59 PM PST by Alberta's Child (Can money pay for all the days I lived awake but half asleep?)
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To: wideawake

Don't confuse the anti-police folks on this thread.....with the facts!


39 posted on 12/04/2006 1:27:26 PM PST by OldFriend (FALLEN HERO JEFFREY TOCZYLOWSKI, REST IN PEACE)
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To: Alberta's Child

Cops are trained to identify themselves. It causes most honest citizens to cooperate, while causing most dishonest citizens to react in an absolutely opposite manner.


40 posted on 12/04/2006 1:28:51 PM PST by F.J. Mitchell ( Is not death also victory in a war against an abomination so vile you could never live with it?)
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