The NYPD Officers who fatally shot Sean Bell on his wedding day won’t face federal charges, the dead man’s despondent dad said Tuesday.
“They said they were limited by statutes and evidence,” William Bell told The NY Daily News after emerging from a meeting with federal prosecutors.
“I’m not a lawyer, what can I say. My son’s dead, and they can’t do anything about it. He can’t even rest in peace.”
A short time later, Bell’s grim-looking fiancée, Nicole Paultre-Bell, left the meeting accompanied by her lawyer, Sanford Rubenstein.
Neither had any immediate comment, nor was there any official word from the feds.
The decision not to prosecute the detectives on civil rights charges stemming from the Nov. 25, 2006 shooting is not a surprise.
U.S. prosecutors rarely charge police officers with civil rights violations – and almost never in cases where the officers have already been acquitted in state court.
The Bells had been pushing for federal charges since April 2008, when three NYPD detectives were acquitted of state charges in the shooting that killed Bell – and seriously wounded two of his friends.
Bell and Nicole were due to walk down the aisle together just hours after he was killed in a 50-shot fusillade. The couple has a now 7-year-old daughter, Jada.
Shooting survivors Trent Benefield and Joseph Guzman had also been demanding justice from the feds.
Later, the Rev. Al Sharpton issued a statement in which he said he spoke with Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who told him that the evidence was insufficient to pursue federal charges.
“I expressed to him my extreme disappointment in the decision and our legal advisers saw the evidence and federal jurisdiction differently,” said Mr. Sharpton. “We agreed, however, that the family and community must continue to bring a new day in how we deal with police matters and how both community residents and police are protected equally under the law.”
With the decision to not file civil rights charges, the Police Department is now free to move ahead on any internal disciplinary action it might consider in the case. The families can also move ahead with a planned civil lawsuit. Mr. Sharpton said those avenues would “bring some justice” to Mr. Bell’s family and to his two wounded friends.
(Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/NY Times Blog)
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7 Responses
Mr. Sharpton, mind your own business!
Hey Slim Shadey Sharpton Yemach Shimcha,
Instead of rabble rousing like you do all so well, why not point out to the bruthuhs some of the things Ding Dong Bell did in his life that is utterly dispicible. Lets see, he had a daughter out of wedlock & he was in a z’nus club for his batchelor party.
Such behavior should be pointed out as being bad, yet Sharpton Yemach Sh’mo & the brother leadership refuse to acknowledge this.
What, exactly, did Mr. Sharpton do you offend you?
He sticks up for his people the way we should (and in most cases do, b”H) stick up for ours.
He did not rabble rouse and in fact if you read the article, it seems he calmed them down and advised other options. I totally and completely agree with Mr. Sharption and actually if it was me (hv”s) I think I would have made a bigger deal of it.
Yes, Sean Bell did not live according to our standards. So what? Do you mean to say he deserved to be shot dead by 50 bullets for no reason whatsoever on the day of his would-be wedding? Do you believe his family deserves to suffer the terrible pain of losing a loved one in such a terrible way so unexpectedly and on a day that should have been filled with joy?
A Jew is categorized as a rachman. Do your words not betray your name? I think words say more about a person than their name does. And if that’s the case then you, my friend, are in trouble.
Comment #3 You are wrong.
He was not shot dead “for no reason” he was shot dead because he was trying to use a car as a murder machine to run down and kill the cops to told him to stop.
And yes 50 bullets or 500 bullets whatever it takes to stop him and save their own lives.
He was not a criminal just because he was getting married?
Gangsters get married too (then cheat on their wives).
And since it was brought up, being at the club he was in, even in the non Jewish world is not something that people look up to, or think is so ‘acceptable’.
That did give the cops the right to shoot him, but that was not why they had to.
And the reason they had to, was entirely legitimate.
Besides saving their own lives they might have saved someone he might have run over after the cops.
If he was willing to do that to cops, certainly no one else on the road, was going to be safe from him.
Sorry I meant to say that being in a Znus club did ‘not’ give the cops the right to shoot him.
But then expolained why they did have that right and that responsibility t make sure he did not get away to run other people over, as part of his crime spree.
MichelleNY, I invite you to come to Crown Heights for a Shabbos like I have done. Then you can do as much pontificating as you want on Eastern Parkway. I am sure your fellow JEWS would very much appreciate your defense of Sharpton.
By the way, you wouldn’t happen to be the lawyer who would have gone after Rush claiming that Rush defamed Sharpton, now would you?
I apologize as I was apparently given inaccurate information regarding this case.
Although to #6, I honestly have no idea what you are referring to.