NY: Crowd denounces police killing of groom

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.

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.

From the article as posted above:

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

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.

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.

kinoxi says:
So you think this guy just attacked the officers? The police aren't claiming that.

Hitting an officer and a car a couple of times would certainly get one's attention.

Hinkly buzzard says:
especially when there was no apparent imminent threat.

Hitting someone with a car isn't an imminent threat?

Kinoxi says:
If you come across a shred of fact that contradicts it please ping me.
and
There has been no attempt to even imply the victims were doing anything wrong.
and
What charges are involved here?

I would say it "looks bad", but the article itself says ... well I've already quoted it. Is this a sufficient level of factuality or what more would you like? Hitting a pedestrian with a car is a no-no, and can lead to charges of attempted vehicular homicide. Doing so and showing no inclination to stop looks like hit-and-run, which can be a felony.

kinoxi says:
I had read one article that said one of the officers emptied two clips.

I say again, there's an issue here about WHY lead started flying. This article, which is not dripping with sympathy for the police, says that a vehicle was hit twice and a pedestrian once, and that somebody was overheard using conversation that suggested the presence of a gun.

I'm not trying to excuse, I'm trying to depict what I read which seems relevant to me.

Once the lead starts flying, if the officer trained as I do a little and some of my buddies do a LOT, a magazine swap is done without thought and faster than you can imagine.

There are good materials out there about the psychology and neurology of close quarters gun fights. It would be good if some of those who like to crawl all over the police would acquaint themselves with the information such as it is. When Amadou Diallo reaches for his wallet instead of keeping hiss hands where the officers can see them, or when somebody hits a pedestrian and rams a car, it can get lethal very fast. Once the threshold is crossed there is no intentional or perceptible difference for the cop between firing a couple of rounds and emptying a couple of magazines. Officers debriefed soon after a gun fight will say, with all sincerity that they maybe e fired a couple of rounds. When they are shown their empty magazines, they are astounded. That's what adrenaline does for you.

My friend and favorite trainer said often,"There's only one way to win a gun fight, and that is to get it over with." He trained me to send 6 rounds down range and accurately a lot faster than I thought I could. With that training, I am not going to delicately place a round or two and then assess my opponents condition, because once we start shooting, it's personal, and I intend to go home and sleep in my own bed that night.

Please understand: I am not defending the officers in this case and I am not saying that all this is just fine. I AM saying that even this slanted article hints at more than it states directly, and the perception of the officers on the scene might vary somewhat from yours or from the reporters. I am also saying that at the level of training, staffing, and equipping for which taxpayers are willing to pay, bad stuff is going to happen. You put cops in impossible situations, impossible stuff is going to go down.

And then when the cop has done the best he could in a situation which is difficult to comprehend if you haven't been there facing somebody who sure LOOKS like he means to do you some damage (say by hitting you with his car ...) and you are running through departmental policy on the continuum of force and saying," Oh SH*t! The department doesn't like shooting into a moving car, but what the heck else can I do when the guy has hit our car once and looks like he's about to -- damn! he just hit us AGAIN!"

Golly, you guys think police work is so simple that you can do it WAY better than the actual police. Maybe you can. Maybe you could, say, join the reserves, and give the full-times some pointers on how to do their job as well as you can. I'm pretty confident that most departments could use some qualified reserves. Fo' shizzle , the tax payers aren't paying for the policing they want, so public spirited volunteers could make a big difference. Think it over. If you're as good as you suggest, the community needs you, and, believe me, you'll get all the admiration and support that the full-time police get.

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