April 25, 2008
Sean Bell Shooting Verdict: COPS FOUND NOT GUILTY
Above, from left, Detectives Marc Cooper, Michael Oliver and Gescard Isnora
Update: Queens DA Dick Brown just held a press conference with his prosecution team to discuss Judge Cooperman's not guilty verdict in the Sean Bell shooting trial. While many fault the prosecution's case against the three cops as the reason for its outcome, Brown defended the work of everyone involved in the case, stressing the amount of time and effort put into preparing the best prosecution possible.
Most significantly, Brown defended the prosecution's decision to read the grand jury testimony of the accused into the court record, which allowed Judge Cooperman to hear the defendant's side of the story without subjecting them to cross examination, as "appropriate." Brown also said that the system worked in this case, as Cooperman's decision was based on all the facts available and the burdens of proof that prosecutors have to face. He stressed that Cooperman was one of the county's most experienced and fair jurists.
Lead prosecutor Charlie Testagrossa said that while not the longest, it was the most difficult case he's ever had to try. He said that he had a lot of respect for Judge Cooperman. While expressing no regrets over the way he tried the case, he also thought that it was not unwinable. DA Brown said that he's offered the full cooperation of his office to Ben Campbell, who is the US Attorney for the Eastern District if the feds plan on going ahead with a separate prosecution.
Update: Judge Cooperman found all three detectives not guilty of all charges. According to reports, there was a "stunned silence" and tears in the court. Cooperman said they were justified in the shooting--he found credibility issues with witnesses. One thing to note--the prosecution read the detectives' grand jury testimony in court, basically allowing them not to testify at all during this trial (see this Hamill story).
Per the Daily News, Cooperman said "did not view the victims or the NYPD as having been on trial here" and said, "The burden was on the people to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Each defendant was assumed to be innocent." Cooperman added, "Carelessness is not a crime." Here's the verdict sheet.
Police Commissioner Ray Kelly just had a press conference. He declined to comment about the verdict, because he'll have the final say in any departmental disciplinary action. He added that the US Attorney's office asked him not to start proceedings, because they are looking into the case.
Patrolmen's Benevolence Association president Pat Lynch said that he's grateful for the verdict but "there's no winners...there's no losers. There's a death that occurred...nonetheless, this sends a message to NYC police officers that when you are in that positions, when you are in front of a courthouse, when you are in front of that court bench, you will get fairness." Lynch repeated that this was a tragedy and that police officers have a difficult job.
The NAACP's Leroy Gatson said the court was bankrupt and justice was not served. He wants the feds to take over the case.
WNBC's Andrew Siff pointed out that Cooperman did not discuss the reckless endangerment charges at all--because the prosecution couldn't prove the "top half" (the manslaughter charges), Cooperman essentially wasn't going to discuss the other charges. And Cooperman felt testimony from Bell's friends, Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield, undermined the prosecution, notably different stories of the evening's events. Siff added that Cooper said at the beginning of his remarks this morning that he would not factor in sympathy or emotion--"and he didn't."
Originally, a press conference from the Reverend Al Sharpton, Nicole Paultre-Bell, Joseph Guzman, Sean Bell family members and attorneys was scheduled for right after the verdict, but it seems they have left the courthouse. Sharpton has also scheduled a vent session at the National Action Network at 1 p.m.--during his radio show-- so it looks like his first comments will come then.
Relatively speaking, the procession outside of the courthouse was orderly (WNBC's Tim Minton compared it to Fifth Avenue, except with pissed off people). If anything, the scuffles looked like they were really between photographers and supporters of the Bell family.
Earlier: The verdict in the Sean Bell shooting trial, where three undercover police officers face charges including manslaughter, assault and reckless endangerment, is expected very soon. The defendants, Detectives Michael Oliver, Gescard Isnora and Marc Cooper, opted for a bench trial instead of a jury trial, will hear the decision by Judge Arthur Cooperman, as will friends, family and supporters of Bell who are gathered at the Queens courthouse.
Cooperman is the subject of a NY Post article, which finds him to be "no-nonsense" and says his decision "will be one of the most important bench-trial verdicts in the city's history today." But the Daily News' Denis Hamill thinks that the trial will be remembered for the strange prosecution.
Photograph of the street where Bell was killed by Casa De Darnoc on Flickr
The NY Times has a graphic explaining the various charges the three officers face. Oliver, who fired 31 of the 50 shots aimed at Bell and his two friends on November 25, 2006, could spend up to 25 years in jail if convicted of all charges; Isnora fired 11 times and Cooper 4 times (the cops who fired the other shots were not indicted).
And while Mayor Bloomberg has said he doesn't expect violence after a verdict, the police are on alert.
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Manslaughter = Not Guilty
Oh well
those 3 obviously hate people-of-color.
bunch of damn racists!
Not Guilty for everything
Breaking News 9:14 AM ET:
3 Detectives in Bell Shooting Found Not Guilty of All Charges
At the least, they should be guilty of manslaughter.
I am disgusted by the verdict. It sucks to be a black man in this country. Sucks even more to be a black woman. Sucks even more to be a black woman who is a lesbian. Sucks even more to be a black woman who is a blind lesbian. Um, life just sucks.
The crowd is pretty pissed. Now watch the members of the media go to the craziest, most pissed off members of the crowd to get their opinion on the verdicts. Hopefully they'll find someone particularly calm of mind to say something unbiased and relevant.
I hope there is violence after this verdict. Minorities in this city have exhausted all of their legal options. It's clear that no matter what they do, police brutality will go unpunished every time. Violence is their only option now. After all, it was the option the defendants used.
Justice served.
Way to go, prosecution.
"Justice served."
Um, no. That wasn't justice that was served.
HA HAA mass panic and potential violence.
I wonder if it was the officers that had been shot 50 times...
Disgusting.
@ Vanessa: Yes it was.
@Art Stewel: Tell me how. Regardless of credibility issues with some witnesses, here's the cold hard facts: 50 shots fired at three unarmed men. One is dead.
And the men that fired those shots got away with it. That's not justice. That's a disgrace.
The suckiness of the verdict is only exceeded by the suckiness of the prosecuting attorneys.
They'll get theirs in due time. Either from the Feds or the NYPD themselves. They won't get off scott free.
WOW! How very wrong. This is a great injustice to all New Yorkers of any race. The police are the new untouchables.
Criminal!!
Oh please.
Do you know how easy it is to fire off that many shots that quickly? Did you ever have to make a split second decision like these cops had to make?
Did you pay attention to the credibility of the witnesses? Or the criminals who the cops shot?
Who goes out and gets piss drunk the night before their wedding? At such a shady establishment?
The right, rational decision was made today.
The shooting was JUSTIFIED. That is the legal defense. There never should have been criminal culpability. However, there may be some administrative penalty merited out (be sure of it) and these cops will face civil liability. But the NEVER committed a crime!
I hope there is violence after this verdict
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense you fucking clown.
I guess you've never heard of Dr. Martin Luther King, who moved mountains through non-violent protest and action in cases not dissimilar to this one?
Your attitude is absolutely sickening and childish, but your anger is understood. Think about what you're really asking for. Violence against innocent people, as a response to violence?
Ha. Typical.
You can't have a civil society based on the rule of law when the law's enforcers routinely break it.
What a joke.
I await interviews w/ strippers showing pixilated titties..
This isn't "justice Served".
They never ID'ed themselves as the police.
They were apparently shooting out of control
It's a miracle no one else got killed and at the very least should be Manslaughter.
And Wesley Snipes gets three years.
This is a situation where there can be no good outcome. Sean Bell was shot and killed -- if you believe Bell's friends Guzman & Benefield, it was a result of a failure of Isnora to identify himself as a cop, Bell's understandable response, followed by an escalating series of misunderstandings and panicked police gunfire.
Isnora's credibility is key. Isnora claims he heard Guzman say "Get my gun." Isnora also claims that he followed them to Bell's car, showed his police badge and shouted, "Police! Don’t move!" after which Bell drove into Isnora's leg and the van driven by Oliver.
If Isnora is to believed, although some police response was justified, there's still a question as to whether the level of force used was justified.
A split the baby verdict is probably what will happen... if things went down as Isnora claims, significant jail time for the cops is probably unjust.
If Isnora did not identify himself as a cop, Bell's response to Isnora was reasonable, and Isnora is the person most responsible for what took place.
Although Oliver fired the most shots, he was operating on less perfect information than Isnora - shots were being fired by, and perhaps at Isnora, Bell drove into the police van ... under those circumstances, Oliver's response may have been appropriate, even if the number of shots he fired in retrospect seems excessive.
I don't envy the judge in trying to figure out what really happened here.
"Who goes out and gets piss drunk the night before their wedding? At such a shady establishment?"
How is this relevant? It certainly doesn't justify being murdered by the police.
See if he would have picked a classier titty bar none of this would have happened.
This has been a Public Service Announcement by your local support your strippers foundation reminding you to choose a nicer place, save up and go to the nicer place even if it is less often.
saw that coming.
Ignore my lengthly last post... i was writing before the verdict came in.
The judge believed the cops. If so, it can't have been easy (I hope it wasn't easy) for him to have come to the verdict, which he must have known would be ill-received by the public.
If he really believed the cops acted properly and Isnora was truthful, it is probably the right result, but it takes a lot of guts to make that call knowing it will be hugely unpopular with a large majority of interested observers.
Now I guess we are going to be faced with shock and outrage, and calls for federal prosecutions... just a bad situation no matter how you look at it.
This is injustice. A few of people on here are making jokes and I do not feel this is anything to take lightly. This young black man, that did not have a record and was not doing aything wrong was killed by some STUPID A** COPS, who think there title as COPS gives them the right to just take anybody out when they feel. They should feel like SH** because they killed a innocent man, and he suffered, being shot 50x. Come on now, "50x"!!! Was that necessary??? I have a son and I know that if this happen to him. I would fight to see those A** Holes in prison. Maybe they need to sit back and think about how they would feel if it was their son. My prays go out for Sean Bells family and friends.
"Who goes out and gets piss drunk the night before their wedding? At such a shady establishment?"
Vanessa, you obviously don't know the mind of a man.
Thank You Come Again.
*sigh*
whoops... directed at CKNY
Going out and getting drunk at that shady joint shows the character of the people involved.
Combined with their criminal records, you have to question the story they told and also question their actions that night.
Its sad that these people died but the cops were doing their jobs.
"Who goes out and gets piss drunk the night before their wedding?"
Um, on a hunch, your not married or had a Boring Bachelor "party"...
I am more amazed at the excessive amounts of bullests used. 50 shots includes at least 1 reload of at least one of the officers.
How does a cop shoot a full clip, reload, and then continue shooting against an UNARMED man?
This is a shame.
have you guys ever seen demolition man? the cops are equipped with these stunner sticks. Those might have come in handy in this situation.
Has any rioting been reported?
I'm getting married in September, I guarantee that I won't be out at Scores the night before.
None of my married friends went out the night before their weddings. Then again, none of them have criminal records either.
I'm not saying that A caused B but these weren't exactly choir boys that were shot.
Furthermore, if the black community reacted 10% as outraged at the daily violence committed by black people in their own communities as they do to a case where NYPD is involved, this city (and all others) would be much safer places for people of all colors.
justice served, but if people can't accept what the laws says.
any bets if there is riots? this would just be a excuse for people to go looting. plus 2 of the 3 officers is black unlike la.
we are all guilty of something.
the fascist security force's job is to apprehend the guilty (us) with extreme prejudice.
new york's finest(sic) were just, like the nazi guards, doing their job. their' heavily armed and going to shoot somebody...anybody.
by the way, innocent untill proven guilty is for pussies and faggotts.
forget about that americen constitution bs.
There was a time when the Dept of Justice would have stepped in and taken the case away from the local prosecutors with local concerns and different rules of evidence and tried the case on civil rights violations and, in all likelihood, got a conviction. Or at least a better version of the truth.
But that was when we had an active Civil Rights department at the DOJ.
As for the case, I'm very surprised it was this clean-cut for the defense. I thought at least Oliver would have gotten some time, since it seems pretty clear that he's a hot-head who overreacted.
But let's be honest, this whole thing was a clusterf*** from the start. One had only to listen to the lieutenant in charge to see that (he's a poor squad commander and an even worse liar), and it's no surprise that this club squad, who seemed (from the lieutenant's own testimony) to be going out on a whim, soon found itself in way over its head. So you have a lieutenant with bad judgement, a hot-head detective, and an inexperience lot around them.... it's a wonder more people weren't killed. So all the defense had to show was that it was a clusterf***, say they're sorry (which Detective Oliver still refuses to do, unlike the other two men on trial), and move on.
This is why this case screamed out for DOJ involvement. I don't recall too many cases where the clusterf*** defense worked in Federal court.
ONE
TWO
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TEN
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THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
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EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY ONE
TWENTY TWO
TWENTY THREE
TWENTY FOUR
TWENTY FIVE
TWENTY SIX
TWENTY SEVEN
TWENTY EIGHT
TWENTY NINE
THIRTY
THIRTY ONE
THIRTY TWO
THIRTY THREE
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THIRTY SIX
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FORTY
FORTY ONE
FORTY TWO
FORTY THREE
FORTY FOUR
FORTY FIVE
FORTY SIX
FORTY SEVEN
FORTY EIGHT
FORTY NINE
FIFTY
In the amount of time it took you to read this, ask yourself this: Was there no time to think?
A few of people on here are making jokes and I do not feel this is anything to take lightly. This young black man, that did not have a record and was not doing aything wrong was killed by some STUPID A** COPS, who think there title as COPS gives them the right to just take anybody out when they feel.
I understand the feelings behind this post, especially about people making jokes. I also agree that some cops are just bullys with badges.
However, if Isnora was telling the truth - and the verdict suggests the judge believed he was - he identified himself as a cop, and Bell then drove into him and the van. Driving a car into a cop would be doing something wrong, could be deadly force, and justify the gunfire that followed.
However, knowing nothing other than what I've read in the papers, I agree with you.
No gun found, Bell out on his bachelor party -- on the limited information, Bell's decision to drive into Isnora, knowing he was a cop, is hard to understand. The situation seems a lot more understandable if we believe that Bell did NOT know Isnora was a cop (either because Isnora didn't ID himself or because Bell didn't hear or understand the ID). It's not clear, and probably none of us can know, if Bell was doing something wrong or not.
Either way, he's dead, and the number of shots fired still seems like an overreaction.
This isn't about race. This is cop vs. thug. These jerk-offs dress like thugs, act like thugs, talk like thugs, and then they're shocked when they get treated like thugs.
If these guys were hanging out in the lower east side drinking PBRs and wearing skinny jeans - they might be mocked but not shot.
Bell and his friends put themselves in this jackpot. Fuckem.
FemiredWood--
Are you that ignorant to think that 3 guys firing all those shots would take anywhere nearly as long as it takes to read all that?
In all seriousness, this is why police cars with dash cameras basically work out in everyones favor. Like in many other places you have audio video proof of what happened, no truth like sight.
A not guilty verdict means that the prosecution didn't prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. It doesn't necessarily mean that the jury - or here, the judge - believed that the defendants did nothing wrong. It's a narrow distinction, but it exists.
#47, what's the matter with you? You don't know what you're talking about. (For future reference, it's "on" the Lower East Side, not "in.")
Jen, you are striking out today with the typos/grammatical errors. Do you guys need some more help on the editorial staff?