By IRNA,
New York : A New York State Supreme Court justice’s decision to acquit three police detectives in the November 2006 death of an unarmed man was stunning in its thorough absolution of the officers who fired 50 bullets at Sean Bell and two companions as they sat in a car outside a club.
Justice Arthur Cooperman of the trial-level court found the three not guilty of all charges of manslaughter, assault and reckless endangerment – even though one officer reloaded his gun to squeeze off 31 rounds.
We respect Cooperman’s verdict, but we do not believe all questions of accountability were resolved.
Large questions remain about the New York Police Department. In recent years, when police have killed unarmed men, they have been, almost without exception, black.
The detectives on trial said that they believed Bell, Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield had a gun, and based on that suspicion they fired away. No gun was found, The New York Times said.
Similarly, in 1999 police fired 41 bullets at Amadou Diallo, an unarmed African immigrant who was just reaching for his wallet. The acquittal of four police officers after that killing, which occurred during the racially challenged leadership of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, set off unrest in which scores were arrested.
Anger and disappointment are understandable now, but New York’s leadership has changed, and community activists need to absorb that fact before they attempt to heat up reaction. Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly are trying to correct the conditions that led to the Bell shooting, changes that take time and good faith on all sides. Both men have kept a schedule of outreach to minority communities.
Progress has been steady. After the Bell shooting, Kelly ordered an independent study of department firearms training. The commissioner hopes to prevent “reflexive shooting” after one officer fires an initial shot. Detective Michael Oliver alone managed to fire 31 of the 50 rounds toward Bell’s car – all in the few seconds following an initial shot from Gescard Isnora.
The margin of error once shooting begins has become distressingly small. The police have come to favor fast, easy-to-fire weapons like 9 mm semiautomatics. The rule that an officer is to pause and reassess after three shots can be forgotten in the heat of gunplay.
In his verdict, Justice Cooperman indicated that he found no carelessness or incompetence that rose “to the level of criminal acts.
We respect that judgment as a matter of law, but we see both carelessness and incompetence in the behavior of the police officers that must be corrected as a matter of public policy.