Judge acquits 3 NYPD officers in fatal shooting
Detectives are found not guilty on all charges in the shooting death of Sean Bell, who was gunned down outside a Queens strip club. The Rev. Al Sharpton denounces verdicts and calls for a federal probe.
NEW YORK — At a heavily guarded courthouse in Queens, a state Supreme Court judge today acquitted three police officers in the killing of Sean Bell, who was gunned down in a hail of bullets on the morning of his wedding.
Arthur J. Cooperman found the three detectives not guilty on all felony and misdemeanor charges. Gescard Isnora and Michael Oliver had been charged with manslaughter. A third, Marc Cooper, had been charged with reckless endangerment.
Spectators in the packed courtroom gasped as the verdict was read and Bell's fiancee, Nicole Paultre-Bell, walked out.
In his judgment, Cooperman began by noting the dual meaning of the word "trial."
"It is also defined in the dictionary as a hardship," he said. "And, in many ways, this trial was a hardship."
The judge reached the not-guilty verdict after carefully considering "inconsistencies in testimony among prosecution witnesses" and questioning "the motive witnesses may have had to lie," he said. He concluded by saying that "at times, the testimony just didn't make sense."
After the verdict, Bell's parents and his fiancee visited the Long Island cemetery where Bell is buried while the Rev. Al Sharpton took to the airwaves to call for a federal investigation of the shooting.
"The fight is far from over," Sharpton said during a radio broadcast in front of an audience of about 100 people. He described the verdict as "an abortion of justice" and charged the defense attorneys with bringing up the issue of race during the trial.
"I don't have a lot of faith in the criminal justice system, especially in this state," said Sharpton. "Now the challenge is: how we are going to respond."
The Rev. Jesse Jackson described the verdict as "a travesty of justice." Speaking from Chicago, he said: "An ugly pattern is emerging in New York. This was a massacre, this was not a shootout. And the U.S. attorney general must give America the assurance that we all have equal protection under the law."
The president of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Assn., Patrick J. Lynch, described the shooting as "tragic" but said "we're grateful for this outcome."
Earlier in the day, Dist. Atty. Richard Brown and Assistant Dist. Atty. Charles A. Testagrossa spoke to reporters at the Queens courthouse.
