Posted on 04/26/2008 4:28:39 PM PDT by SkyPilot
NEW YORK (AP) - Hundreds of angry people marched through Harlem on Saturday after the Rev. Al Sharpton promised to "close this city down" to protest the acquittals of three police detectives in the 50-shot barrage that killed a groom on his wedding day and wounded two friends.
"We strategically know how to stop the city so people stand still and realize that you do not have the right to shoot down unarmed, innocent civilians," Sharpton told an overflow crowd of several hundred people at his National Action Network office in the historically black Manhattan neighborhood. "This city is going to deal with the blood of Sean Bell."
Reverend Al Sharpton comments on the not guilty verdict of the three New York City detectives in the November 2006 killing of Sean Bell as shooting victim Joseph Guzman, right, William Bell, left, Valerie Bell, second from left, and Nicole Paultre Bell, third from left, look on during Sharpton's radio show, Saturday, April 26, 2008 at the National Action Network headquarters in New York. (AP Photo/Stephen Chernin)
Sharpton was joined by the family of 23-year-old Sean Bell - a black man - and a friend of Bell who was wounded in the 2006 shooting outside a Queens strip club. Two of the three officers charged were also black.
The rally at Sharpton's office was followed by a 20-block march down Malcolm X Boulevard and then across 125th Street, Harlem's main business thoroughfare, where some bystanders yelled out "Kill the police!"
Fifty of the marchers carried white placards bearing big black numbers for each of the police bullets fired at Bell and his friends.
Sharpton urged people to return for a meeting this coming week "to plan the day that we will close this city down" with the kind of "massive civil disobedience" once led by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
"They never accused Sean Bell of doing anything. Then why is he dead?" Sharpton asked, his voice roaring with anger. Authorities "have shown now that they will not hold police accountable. Well, guess what? If you won't, we will!"
"Shut it down! Shut it down!" the crowd chanted, standing up and applauding wildly.
Sharpton didn't say exactly how they would protest the acquittals of the officers who fired the 50 shots. He said Bell's supporters could demonstrate all over the city, from Wall Street to the home of Justice Arthur Cooperman, who on Friday acquitted the three detectives after a nonjury trial.
Sitting behind Sharpton as he spoke were Bell's parents, his sister and Nicole Paultre Bell, who took her fiance's name after his death.
"The justice system let me down," Paultre Bell told the crowd in a soft voice. "April 25, 2008: They killed Sean all over again. That's what it felt like to us."
It was her first public comment since she stormed out of a courtroom Friday after the NYPD detectives were cleared in Bell's killing as he left his bachelor party.
One of Bell's companions, Joseph Guzman, also spoke briefly on Saturday, saying: "We've got a long fight."
Strip club where Sean Bell was that night.
You knew this was coming. Looks like Rush might not have to wait for Denver for riots - kinda’ proves his point.
Tawana Brawley.....Al
You’re are right, more than proves Rush’s point.
Freddie’s Fashion Mart
Sharpton should be arrested.
I know almost nothing about this event except for the blurbs I saw on the idiot box
If the Righteous Rev. Al is got his panties in a knot over this, there must be money to be made somehow, somewhere.
Since it isn't about race based on the fact two of the evil trigger happy LEO's were black
" Sen. Barack Obama weighed in today on the acquittals of New York City police detectives charged in fatally shooting an unarmed black Queens man, Sean Bell, saying he believed that the verdict needed to be respected and urging those who disagreed with it not to resort to violence. That would be "completely unacceptable and counterproductive," Obama said."
"Well, look, obviously there was a tragedy in New York. I said at the time, without benefit of all the facts before me, that it looked like a possible case of excessive force. The judge has made his ruling, and we're a nation of laws, so we respect the verdict that came down," he said in response to a question at a gas station in Indianapolis, where he was holding a news conference."
"The most important thing for people who are concerned about that shooting is to figure out how do we come together and assure those kinds of tragedies don't happen again," he continued. ... "Resorting to violence to express displeasure over a verdict is something that is completely unacceptable and counterproductive."
Heh ... Obama’s being set up by the FO(the)B.
Surprisingly good reply.
Sharpton is yesterday’s guy, a fact that is slowly beginning to dawn on him.
Read my #11
Someone driving a 5000#+ automobile isn’t unarmed, and this is a direct incitement to riot.
Well, Al has been getting jealous of all the press and attention that Radical Wright has been getting -— now he has to chime in with his version of the hate America, hate Whitey, play the race-card time....hehehe -— these professional racists are so predictable... :-)
....if he could only use his powers for good.
Al Sharpton — the Muqtada al Sadr of America. Both deserve to die in a hail of bullets.
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