The Associated Press
Read the P1 News Report: 3 NYPD detectives cleared in shooting
NEW YORK — New York Gov. David Paterson said Monday that he was “surprised” by last week’s acquittal of three police officers in the fatal shooting of unarmed groom-to-be Sean Bell.
Queens State Supreme Court Justice Arthur Cooperman cleared undercover detectives Michael Oliver, Gescard Isnora and Marc Cooper Friday of charges including manslaughter, reckless endangerment, and assault in the Nov. 26, 2006, shooting near a Queens strip club where Bell, 23, had just left his bachelor party.
Paterson said he was surprised by the verdict “to a certain degree, maybe just because of the number of shots that were fired.”
Officers unloaded 50 shots on Bell and his two friends outside the Kalua Cabaret in the early morning hours on the day Bell was to be married; Bell’s friends survived. The officers said they believed the men had a gun and feared for their lives; the three were unarmed.
The governor said he understood why some people are upset and protesting, referring to marches around the city that have taken place since the verdict. He noted that cases such as the Bell shooting “arouse a mistrust” in the criminal justice system “among people who live in these neighborhoods,” but he said the verdict must be accepted.
“It is the way our criminal justice system works,” he said.
Paterson encouraged people who are dissatisfied with the outcome of the trial to wait for investigations by the New York Police Department and federal authorities to be completed. “There may still be some redress in that case,” he said.
Also Monday, Michigan Congressman John Conyers met with Bell’s family, civil rights advocates, and the two survivors, Trent Benefield and Joseph Guzman, who still has four police bullets lodged in his body, to discuss the U.S. Department of Justice investigation into the shooting. Civil rights advocates and others are demanding federal charges be brought against the three officers.
In the afternoon rain, Conyers stood outside the club before walking over to the scene of the shooting, where officers fired on Bell, Benefield and Guzman as they sat in a car.
“This is an important moment in the history of the criminal justice system in America,” Conyers, a Democrat and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, told reporters before visiting the scene, where there was a memorial of flowers, candles and pictures.
“We want to make sure justice is served and a message is sent out not only to law enforcement but to young people that these kinds of tragedies have to end in this country.”
The detectives union has requested a meeting with Conyers, who agreed, said Ken Frydman, the union’s spokesman. “We’d like equal time,” Frydman said. “We’d like to be heard.”