A judge has acquitted three NYPD detectives of all charges in the shooting death of 23-year-old Sean Bell on Friday. Bell was gunned down in a hail of 50 bullets outside a Queens club on what would have been his wedding day in November 2006.
The highly anticipated verdict, which many see as holding far-reaching social ramifications for New York City and its police force, comes after seven weeks worth of testimony without a jury.
Detectives Gescard Isnora and Michael Oliver, faced up to 25 years behind bars for manslaughter charges, while Det. Marc Cooper faced a year in jail on reckless endangerment charges.
The detectives, who were responding to complaints about prostitution at the club, have claimed they fired their guns only after Isnora identified himself as a police officer and Bell’s car nearly ran him over.
Oliver fired 31 shots in the incident, Isnora fired 11, and Cooper fired four times.
(Source: CBS2 HD)
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24 Responses
Justice prevails… Thank G-d.
Good.
Rev. Al is already marching…..
Justice prevails ? Give me a break, these cops should have been held accountable for man slaughter. Firing 50 shots is out of control. I know they need to protect themselves but when they fire out of control like that , the NYPD needs to look into their flawed system.
hinally some great news
#1 & #2 …
“Good”?
“Justice prevails”?
Do you honestly believe that the police shouldn’t have to answer for pumping FIFTY bullets into a human being?
Leave it to the liberal media to count the number of bullets. They never count the number of dead police officets due to these evil hoodlums.
The fellow ran his car at the police. It doesn’t matter how many bullets it took. It was a waste of bullets for this evil trash.
Thank G-d he is gone.
#6, I will answer your question on behalf of #1, #2. You see when the victim is black the police acted accordingly but G-D forbid if it was a jewish victim ( remember Gideon Busch ) the police actions were wrong.
Double standard
I neither can see any justification in the killing of an unarmed man. The police are usually right. But in this case there is no defense for killing an innocent man.
It brings to mind the murder of Gideon Busch.
What does “nearly run over” mean?
The vehicle was already past the gunner, and the gunner was no longer in immediate danger? But his ego was suffering continuing damage?
It would be wonderful if we knew the truth before jumping to conclusions as to whether or not justice prevailed. None of us were there.
Joseph, he was NOT unarmed. A motor vehicle, when driven to attack people is VERY MUCH a deadly weapon.
50 bullets by three oficers means approx 17 bullets per oficer. In the few seconds that it took, in the situation that they were in, it isnt unheard to fie that amount of bullets. Put yourself in their shoes.
Meirg; it was 31 by one officer, 11 by another, and 4 by the 3rd. (That makes 46 according to my math. I don’t know where the figure of 51 came from.) The guy with the 31 may have gotten a bit carried away. What kind of weapon was it? A 6 shooter? Did he reload 5 times? Or was it some kind of automatic, in which case 30 can get fired in a second or two with one pull of the trigger? Or was it something in the middle?
midwesterner, I don’t suppose you’d support cops shooting every driver? Afterall, they’re all ”armed.”
In this case Bell was no more armed than you. Additionally the cops were dressed in street clothes.
midwesterner, Bell wasn’t the driver, so he wasn’t ”armed” in your unique descriptive sense either. And the driver, whoever it was, was trying to flee from being shot dead in a hail of police gunfire — thinking the shooters were armed bandits, not police. He was trying to defend himself.
Joseph,
Your comments are beyond the pale and indicate a callous disregard for the life of those that protect us.
The police can be attacked any number of ways and a car is certainly a deadly weapon in the way it was used.
The number of bullets that modern automatic weapons can release in a very short time can easily reach 50 bullets. The insinuation that they were trying to pepper him with bullets for pure spite is disgusting.
The police should not have any limits on the amount of force they need to perform their duty adequately.
The perpetrator’s death was totally justified and the number of bullets is totally irrelevant.
I quote from the above post: “The detectives, who were responding to complaints about prostitution at the club, have claimed they fired their guns only after Isnora identified himself as a police officer and Bell’s car nearly ran him over.”
As you can tell from my moniker, I am a Midwesterner, and I don’t follow the day to day new on the East Coast as much as others here do. All I know is what it says here.
We do not celebrate events like this. 50 bullets fired at the guy? The cops get away with that? It is one thing for the criminal to be eliminated or stopped,but quite another for the police to over-react with excessive force. 2 wrongs do not make a right. Of course the guy.Mr Bell,was no angel or moral person. What decent man gets a woman pregnant,then decides to marry her a few years later when she has 2 kids, and on the eve of his ‘wedding’ celebrates in an indecent s–x club with zonos?!Then he gets drunk and makes trouble at 4 AM? This is no moral role model. It is good he’s gone but the cop is not good for what he did. We should be afraid if we have police behaving this way.
You guys seem to be missing the boat. The prosecution’s star witness, one of the victims, contradicted himself many times during his testimony. He claimed things happened one way, when his tape recorded testimony during the initial investigation, stated the complete opposite of what he said in court. (Perjury or another one of Sharptongue’s attempts to pervert justice?)
The NYPD uses automatic weapons. It’s extremly easy to fire many rounds in the blink of an eye. The cops obviously thought they were in danger. Should the have waited to get shot first? These situations are extremely tense. Adrenaline is pumping like mad. Hesitating, even for a nano second, can be the difference between life and death. What else could they have done?
I agree that 50 bullets seems excessive, but what do you want from the cops? The streets are a battlefield. Their lives are on the line 24/7. They need to use the latest weapons because the criminals ARE USING THEM.
Judge Cooperman is a brave man to render such a decision in the face of public outcry. I don’t think I would’ve had his courage.
As for that paragon of virtue, Al Sharptongue, I’d like to see him in the same situation the cops found themselves in that night. What would he have done if he was in their shoes? Would he have waited to see what Bell & Co. were going to do, or would he have fired his gun like the cops did?
By the way, Bell & Co., were partying all night. They most likely weren’t drinking tea or mineral water. They very easily could’ve been “impaired”, which would have made them more aggressive than normal. Perhaps things would have been different if they hadn’t been “partying” most of the night.
It is an utter disgrace for the entire Jewish community that Jewish people express comments such as #1,2,and 7. What is behind those disgusting comments is racisim. Plain and simple racisim. Unfortunately a very large amount of Jews feel this way. These people will probably retort that blacks are all on drugs and they are a violent bunch who beat up jews. However as Jews we should hold ourselves to a higher standard especially being that we experienced, throughout the 20th century, what stereotypes can cause. In addition we believe that all people were created B’tzelem Elokim. And even without the Jewish factor the idea of racisim makes absolutely no sense- WHAT MAKES SOMEBODY WITH A DIFFERENT SKIN COLOR ANY DIFFERENT THAN YOU. Can anybody with an unbiased and logical mind answer that. I am absolutely sure that nobody can.
There is a lot of blame to go around why there is rampant racisim in many Jewish people’s minds. Part of it starts with what parents say to their kids-for example using the term “shfartzah”, which is a terrible term, and saying deragatory things about blacks-. Jewish children are brought up with a mentality that anybody that doesn’t fit a certain image that was created for them, is an evil person that they shouldn’t interact with. The blame also lies with rabbeim, and sometimes even rabbanim, as well. I personally heard a teenager tell me that his rebbi says that blacks are stupid, and I believe that the boy was not taking it out of context Is this what we want our society to look like. If so then we are basically asking for another Hitler rachmana litzlun. It is a shame to our society, to our ourselves personally,to the torah, and to whatever Judaism stands for. IT MUST STOP IMMEDIATELY.
open minded,
Your comments are a total contradiction to your selected name. There was not any mention of race in any of my comments and none was intended.
The truth is your jumping to the conclusion that the statements are race based reflect your own latent racism coming to the fore. Firstly, your conclusions indicate that you yourself believe that race played a role in this affair. Secondly, your tarring of all Orthodox Jews with a brush of racism is another level of racism – against Jews. Thirdly, your implication that because he is Black he must be innocent and a victim. Why should blacks get off if they commit crimes? No one is arguing that he didn’t deserve to get killed. Some of those without a stomach for the force that it takes to protect us, are wasting everyone’s time with the nonsensical counting of bullets.
The only disgrace here is the slanderous demeaning of the right minded Orthodox Jews who have been commenting here on the fortuitous implementation of justice in this case.
tzoorba – I made no mention about the number of shots. Reread my posts before ranting.
The fact of the matter is, even ONE SHOT was too many. Bell was unarmed, he was not driving, he was not committing any crime, and there was ZERO excuse for murdering him. (The driver of his vehicle, whoever it was, was attempting to escape a hail of gunfire by men in street clothes.)
to # 21 how about racism because of what is seen as a generally corrupt and morally bankrupt culture. would you really feel comfortable walking through 1 of these black neighborhoods or would you be looking over your shoulder. while 1 shpuld not make assumptions about peopele can YOU really tell the difference between those who are decent and those who are not?