[Si] TV

April 25, 2008—On one of the clearest mornings of this early Spring, the judge presiding over the Sean Bell police brutality case delivered one of the murkiest judicial decisions in New York City history: All cops indicted in the firing of the 50 shots that fatally struck Bell were acquitted of all charges. Supreme Court Justice Arthur Cooperman offered very little in his decision other than stating that: “The people have not proved beyond a reasonable doubt that each defendant was not justified in shooting the victims.”

As of 11 AM this morning the Bell family and their friends had yet to make a public statement about the judge’s decision. Mayor Bloomberg however, issued a press statement that seemed to imply he was disappointed with the decision: “There will be opportunities for peaceful dissent and potentially for further legal recourse.”

In November of 2006, Sean Bell, a 23-yearl old African American male was gunned down by police officers on the eve of his wedding day in a strip club in Jamaica, Queens. New York City Police undercover detectives were combing the establishment for suspected gun activity. Bell was overheard having a disagreement with a club patron, which led to detectives to believe that one of his friends had a gun in a nearby car. Bell was approached by the detectives in his car and shot dead amidst a non-stop barrage of 50 police bullets.

These are some very interesting times in New York City. The Sean Bell case was perhaps one of the clearest examples of police recklessness ever seen. The police detectives arrived at the strip club because a prior location had turned out to be a dud, and they were under pressure from supervisors to make an arrest that night. According to testimony from the officers on trial they decided to survey Club Kalua where strategic decisions on how to approach the club were made in a nearby parking lot, fifteen minutes before the shooting took place. The lead supervisor had not informed headquarters about the sting and was not present once the shooting began. In fact, he did not ask the detectives to reassess the situation even after two rounds of fire had been administered on Bell and his cohorts. Following Bell’s death, Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly called the shooting “excessive.”

In a twist of New York City irony where officers are routinely presumed innocent, the Bell cases marked the first time the Mayor’s Office took a seemingly favorable side with the victim’s family. Mayor Bloomberg met with the family repeatedly and their representative, the Rev. Al Sharpton. The police commissioner was quick to order police commanders to revamp all sting strategies considered routine, yet preemptive. However, justice was not delivered to a city that for the first time in a long time seemed united in its assessment of the case. As time passes it will be interesting to examine the role of the Queens District Attorney’s Office and that of Supreme Court Judge Arthur Cooperman. The Queen’s DA has had a robust history of being negligent in their prosecution of police. More to come…

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