Posted on 11/26/2006 6:18:47 PM PST by NormsRevenge
NEW YORK - An angry crowd demanded Sunday to know why police officers killed an unarmed man on the day of his wedding, firing dozens of shots that also wounded two of the man's friends. Some called for the ouster of the city's police commissioner.
At a vigil and rally the day after 23-year-old Sean Bell was supposed to have married the mother of his two young children, a crowd led by the Rev. Al Sharpton shouted "No justice, no peace."
At one point, the crowd of a few hundred counted off to 50, the number of rounds fired.
"We cannot allow this to continue to happen," Sharpton said at the gathering outside Mary Immaculate Hospital, where one of the wounded men was in critical condition. "We've got to understand that all of us were in that car."
Some in the crowd called for the ouster of Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, yelling "Kelly must go."
The police officers' group 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care said it was issuing a vote of no confidence in Kelly over the shooting.
Paul Browne, chief spokesman for the NYPD, said Sunday: "We are continuing to look for additional witnesses to shed light on the incident, and assisting the district attorney's office with its investigation."
The five officers were placed on paid administrative leave pending the investigation, Browne said.
Community leaders planned a rally Dec. 6 at police headquarters.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his aides were in contact with Bell's family and community leaders throughout the weekend. Bloomberg and Kelly also planned to meet Monday with community leaders at City Hall.
The shootings occurred at about 4 a.m. Saturday outside the Kalua Cabaret, a strip club where Bell's bachelor party was held. The survivors were Joseph Guzman, 31, who was shot at least 11 times, and Trent Benefield, 23, who was hit three times. Guzman was in critical condition Sunday and Benefield was stable.
Relatives of all three men — many of them stoic, and some crying — attended Sunday's vigil but none spoke publicly.
At a news conference Saturday, Kelly said the department was still piecing together what happened, and that it was too early to say whether the shooting was justified.
The car, driven by Bell, was struck by 21 of the police bullets after the vehicle rammed an undercover officer and hit an unmarked NYPD minivan. Other shots hit nearby homes and shattered windows at a train station, though no one else was 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.
It was also not clear whether the shooters had identified themselves as police, Kelly said.
Kelly said the confrontation stemmed from an undercover operation inside the strip club in the Jamaica section of Queens. Seven officers in plain clothes were investigating the Kalua Cabaret; five of them were involved in the shooting.
According to Kelly, the groom was involved in a verbal dispute outside the club and one of his friends made a reference 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 a nearby undercover police vehicle, Kelly said.
The officer who had followed the group on foot was apparently the first to open fire, Kelly said. That officer had served on the force for five years. One 12-year veteran fired his weapon 31 times, emptying two full magazines, Kelly said.
Bell backed the car onto a sidewalk, hitting a building gate, authorities said. He then drove forward, striking the police vehicle a second time, Kelly said.
The police department's policy on shooting at moving vehicles states: "Police officers shall not discharge their firearms at or from a moving vehicle unless deadly force is being used against the police officers or another person present, by means other than a moving vehicle."
In 1999, NYPD officers killed Amadou Diallo, an unarmed West African immigrant who was shot 19 times in the entry to his apartment building. The four officers in that case were acquitted of criminal charges. In 2003, Ousmane Zongo, 43, a native of the western African country of Burkina Faso, was killed during a police raid on a warehouse where he repaired art and musical instruments. Zongo was shot four times, twice in the back.
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Associated Press writer Tom Hays contributed to this report.
Ok this has been here before, but why are they after Kelly before he even has a chance to investigate.
If I could I would place 5 bucks on the assumption that the shooters were members of 100 Blacks in law enforcement who care. or at least they were black officers doing the shooting. A White officer in that club would have stood out like a snowflake in a coal bin.
The fact that the ace of the officers wasnt mentioned is telling. The we have good old Al Sharpton inciting to riot again. Tawana Brawley didnt teach this idiot anything.
I'll wait to hear about this from an accurate source prior to deciding if I feel that was justified or not...
Tom Hays, the author of this piece has been caught very blatantly creating "facts" out of thin air to push political ideology... his reporting is as reliable as Al Sharpton's statements who is also up to his eyeballs in this.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/007755.php
The guys being unarmed and the number of shots fired isn't in dispute.
One fewer criminal in the world, the police did a good job in protecting the public and should be rewarded for their actions.
This Sean Bell character was a lowlife, having children out of wedlock, hanging out at strip clubs at 4a.m. on the day of his wedding, striking a police officer with his car and then ramming a police vehicle.
A car used as a weapon is deadly force, Bell was armed with a 3000 pound weapon, the police responded with equal and just force.
If you want my opinion, the police were trigger happy.
One thing is that evidently a moving vehicle struck an officer -- but it's not clear whether or not he was on foot, and how hard he was struck
The nightmare scenario, or one of them, is that the guys undercover thought they'd been made and panicked.
The 31 shots is not so remarkable. Once the lead starts flying, the evidence shows that most gun fighters empty their magazines without even knowing it.
A lot of good studies are coming out about what happens in a gun fight, and it's not what most people think -- including what looks like a shot in the back. (Whoever put that last paragraph in the article needs to have every mistake he's made publicized also.) It is entirely possible that between the time the irrevocable neurological commitment to pull the trigger is made and the time the trigger is actually pulled, the target can swivel. It is psychologically rare, once the firing begins, for someone who doesn't fight a LOT (or play video games a lot), to stop shooting when he sees the target spin away.
But all that aside, this is not looking very good right now. Of course we can rely on Sharpton to make a righteous shoot a cause celebre just because rousing the rabble is what he likes to do.
Well! If the mob says so...
Didn't suspect number 4 get away? In which case, the notion that the group was unarmed most certainly is in dispute.
I had read one article that said one of the officers emptied two clips. It looks bad.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
Interesting how Sharpton's folks had professionally printed laminated banners ready for their protest. I wonder why Sharpton won't talk about the criminal records of the three thugs who were shot, or why the 4th thug who was believed to have the gun is still on the loose.
I didn't say anything about the morality of running. You said they were not armed. One of their party fled. That member could have been armed.
Not sure where the cop-hating comes from, but its a strange person indeed that chooses to take the world according to Sharpton uncritically.
Sounds like you want "innocent until proven guilty" for the guys coming out of the nightclub? Fair enough, that, and it looks like there is going to be an intensive investigation.
So can we also have "innocent until proven guilty" for the cops, too?
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