Extra, Extra
Extra, Extra
Extra, Extra
Extra, Extra
Early Addition
Undercover detective Hispolito Sanchez testified for a second day, with prosecutors playing the 911 call he made on November 25, 2006, the night police fatally fired at Sean Bell 50 times.
Sanchez's colleagues detectives Michael Oliver and Gescard face manslaughter charges while detective Marc Cooper faces reckless endangerment charges in the bench trial at the Queens courthouse. Sanchez, who did not fire any of the 50 shots at Sean Bell or his friends, heard but did not see any of the police fire.
Outside topless bar Kalua Lounge, where he and other cops were conducting an undercover operation, he shouted into his phone, "There were shots fired!" and told the operator that he was a black male undercover cop, and that he thought "two perps" were down. The Daily News has a partial transcript.
Because Sanchez had apparently heard Bell's friend Joseph Guzman say, "Yo, go to get my gun" after Bell said he wanted to "f---...up" another bar patron, he called a lieutenant to warn the others the men were possibly armed. Sanchez also said he didn't hear the cops identify themselves and he didn't hear police "commands" (like "put your hands down!") but a defense lawyer pointed out Sanchez told a grand jury he did.
Lieutenant Michael Wheeler, who was a sergeant in the Queens precinct in 2006, testified that after the shooting Isnora nor Cooper could not remember how many times they fired (Isnora fired 11 times, Cooper 4 times) and Oliver, who fired 31 times, couldn't even remember if he fired at all.
The News' Denis Hamill thinks the witnesses need their Gingko because they all had "senior moments" and suggests, "If the defense witnesses are half as good for the accused cops as the prosecution witnesses have been, these guys should be walking."
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Blame Reagan for his "I can't recall" bullshit during the Iran-Contra affair. Really? You can't recall selling tons of weapons to someone? Flash forward to the present... You can't recall firing every bullet in your clip into the victim/perp? Really?
For several reasons, city cops shouldn't need to carry more than a couple bullets. 31 shots from one man is insane.
So when a cop dies because he ran out of bullets--the only 2 he had--you will say what?
When a single cop can spray over 30 bullets in a crowded city like New York, all of us are in danger of being killed. The bullets have to stop somewhere.
The cops should carry an amount of bullets to stop whatever threat they face. In the not so distant past city cops were outgunned by the criminal element. In the late 70's it was so bad they would bring their own weapons from home. In the late 80's/early 90's the city refused to allow them automatic weapons. Imagine you were a cop with a six shots against a street urchin blazing a Glock. And the city, Dinkins, was handcuffing the cops, and cops were getting killed. Give me a break. Since the cops switched to automatic weapons the city is far safer, shootings are down, and there have been only a few public isolated incidents where it seems there were possibly excessive shots fired. Arming the cops with only a few bullets is a ridiculous proposition.
Apologies, I didn't mean "a couple" literally. I meant more like "a rational amount."