Results tagged “josephguzman”

Lawyers made closing arguments in the Sean Bell shooting trial today to Judge Arthur Cooperman, who is presiding over the bench trial. Defense lawyers argued that the police officers on trial were acting in self-defense.

Yesterday, a doctor who treated police shooting victim Joseph Guzman was the prosecution's last witness, detailing how Guzman was riddled with bullets. Guzman's friend, Sean Bell, was killed in the gunfire, and two undercover detectives face manslaughter charges while another faces reckless endangerment charges for the shooting.

in a hail of police gunfire. In recalling the man holding a gun, who turned out to be an undercover detective, stood near Bell's car, "He shot me. I’m looking in his eyes, man. He shot me. Everything slowed down. But I’m looking at him shooting me. He’s continuing to shoot.”

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.

Under intense scrutiny from the community and media, the trial of three police officers in the fatal shooting of an unarmed man started today. Detectives Michael Oliver and Gescard Isnora face manslaughter charges while Detective Mark Cooper is charged with reckless endangerment in the 2006 death of Sean Bell, who was killed hours before his wedding when his bachelor party crossed paths with an undercover police operation.

If lawyers for the detectives involved in the Sean Bell case get their way, the venue for a trial may be moved out of Queens. The attorneys for Detectives Mike Oliver, Gescard Isnora, and Marc Cooper met with Judge Arthur Cooperman and prosecutors yesterday to notify them of their intent to move the case out of Queens. Oliver and Isnora are charged with manslaughter while Cooper is facing reckless endangerment in the shooting death of Bell in November, 2006. Bell, Joseph Guzman, and Trent Benefield, all found to be unarmed, were fired upon 50 times by police officers.

On November 25, 2006, groom-to-be Sean Bell and his friends were leaving the Kalua nightclub in Queens when undercover police confronted them. In the confusion that ensued (the police thinking the men were armed or were going to the car to retrieve a gun, uncertainty over whether the police identified themselves leading Bell and his friends to think they were being carjacked) five undercover cops fired 50 times at Bell's car. His friends Joseph...

Trent Benefield, one of the victims in the undercover police shooting of three unarmed men outside a Queens nightclub last year, was arrested Tuesday night for attacking is girlfriend on a street. Plainclothes officers reportedly saw Benefield yelling, "F------ bitch!" before, per the Daily News, "he leaned out his car window and punched Nyla Page-Walthrus, 19, in the throat," "smacked her with the vehicle's door, grabbed her by the neck and hit her in the face."

REV. SHARPTON TO APPRAISE RUDI GIULIANI AT TENTH ANNIVERSARY RALLY & DISCUSS THE STATE OF POLICE BRUTALITY TODAY IN LIGHT OF GIULIANI'S FRONTRUNNER STATUS ON THE REPUBLICAN TICKET BY ANALYZING WHAT THE NATION MIGHT FACE IF GIULIANI IS ELECTED PRESIDENT AND OVER THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENTOther attendees include Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield, who survived being shot by police officers last fall (their friend Sean Bell did not survive) .

Lawyers for the detectives Michael Oliver, Gescard Isnora, and Marc Cooper, the three police officers indicted in the fatal November shooting of Sean Bell, demanded that prosecutors turn over evidence in the case. The NY Times reports their lawyers feel that the prosecutors are withholding evidence:

“It’s like having the fox guarding the chicken coop,” [Karasyk] said.

Continue reading "Detectives in Bell Shooting Want More Evidence"

The NY Post reveals what many people were wondering in the Sean Bell shooting: Who fired the shots that actually killed Bell and hit his friends Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield. It turns out Detective Michael Oliver fired the shots. Oliver fired the most shots, 31, of the detectives and was charged with first-degree and second-degree manslaughter last week.

Three detectives were charged in the November 2006 shooting of Sean Bell outside a Queens nightclub, and all three pleaded not guilty. Two of the police officers, Detectives Michael Oliver and Gescard Isnora, face serious charges that include first-degree and second-degree manslaughter (it was originally thought they would only face second-degree manslaughter), while Detective Marc Cooper faces charges of reckless endangerment. When asked how he would plea, Isnora's lawyer Philip Karasyk said, "Not guilty of each and every count of the indictment."

At 7AM, the three detectives indicted in the shooting of Sean Bell last November turned themselves. WNBC reports that Michael Oliver, Gescard Isnora, and Marc Cooper will be fingerprinted and processed before their arraignment this afternoon.

Update: The NYPD will have to be on alert on Monday now? Earlier, WNBC reported that the grand jury investigating the fatal police shooting of Sean Bell has reached a verdict but will wait until Monday to release it. But now a defense lawyer says the jury voted to indict three of the detectives involved: Michael Oliver who fired 31 shots, Gescard F. Isnora who fired the first of 11 shots, and Marc Cooper. Cooper's lawyer Paul Martin said, "I am disappointed with the grand jury’s decision but this is just the first stage of a long process and I am confident that once all the facts are considered by a jury of Detective Cooper’s peers, that he will be exonerated of all charges."

The first day of grand jury deliberations in the Sean Bell shooting case ended without a verdict, but a new witness may have emerged.

With the grand jury delivering a decision about the Sean Bell shooting case any moment, the city is on alert. The Mayor met with Queens community leaders yesterday. Mayor Bloomberg also called Bell's mother, fiancee Nicole Paultre-Bell, and the Reverend Al Sharpton. The Mayor said:

We are very sensitive to emotions and I don't expect any trouble. People have a right to express themselves. Some people will be happy no matter what, some people will be disappointed.

Continue reading "City Gets Ready for Sean Bell Grand Jury Findings"

Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield, who were in their friend Sean Bell's car when police fired 50 times at them, testified before the grand jury yesterday. While they did not tell reporters what they said about the shooting that after Bell's bachelor party, Benefield said, "We just need justice." Guzman, who was hospitalized for two months and is still in a wheelchair due to his wounds, said, "We've been waiting for this for a long time; this is the first step. We have a long road ahead of us. To sit here and think about it hurts."

The grand jury for the Sean Bell shooting is hearing from witnesses this week and next. Yesterday, three friends who saw when Bell, was fired upon by police last November, testified, saying that the car Bell was driving was moving slowly.

The City Council questioned Police Commissioner Ray Kelly about NYPD tactics in the wake of the fatal shooting of Sean Bell. The Council was aggressive and straightforward; for instance, Councilman David Yassky said , "Too many African-American New Yorkers feel that they are at risk or that their family members are at risk of mistreatment, whether it be to be stopped without reason or to be victimized by excessive force."

Light Criticism, from the Graffiti Research Lab and Anti-Advertising Agency.

The NYPD released photographs of four of the five police officers involved in the fatal shooting of Sean Bell last November. The NY Times says the photos were released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request (the photograph of the fifth officer, the one who fired the first shot, was not released, due to his undercover status). This gave Detectives' Endowment Association president Michael J. Palladino opportunity to say, "The photos of the officers indicate that racism had absolutely nothing to do with this shooting. The photos nullify the racism aspect of the shooting because at least three of the five officers are people of color.”

Yesterday, thousands of people walked down Fifth Avenue in to protest a police shooting against three unarmed men. Sean Bell was shot to death just hours before his wedding while his two friends, Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield, were wounded in a barrage of 50 bullets in less than a minute; undercover police claimed they saw a fourth man with a gun.

The Reverend Al Sharpton announced the "shopping for justice" protest march he's been talking about since the shooting of Sean Bell, Joseph Guzman, and Trent Benefield by the police.

"Many will be shopping for trinkets and toys. We will be shopping for justice and making a moral appeal to this city and this nation. The fact that we are going on probably the most visible street in the world tomorrow, you don't have to talk to be heard. You just got to show up."

Yesterday, hundreds of people gathered for two different marches in Queens to protest the police shooting of Sean Bell, Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield and police conduct in the community overall. A chapter of the NAACP organized a march of hundreds of people from Jamaica Avenue and 168th Street to where the shooting took place, at Liverpool and 94th Avenue. The other march was organized by the New Black Panther Party, which started at the shooting scene and ended at Jamaica and 168th, and offered much angrier words.

Last night, Trent Benefield left the hospital a week and a half after he and his friends were shot by police outside a Queens nightclub. His friend, Sean Bell, was killed while the third friend, Joseph Guzman, remains in the hospital with around 19 wounds. Benefield thanked the Reverend "Al Sharpton, the community, the community leaders for sticking by" him. And he told NY1 that there was "no fourth man," as police have claimed, in their car.

Last night, Larry King spoke to the Reverend Al Sharpton and Nicole Paultre. Paultre is the fiancee of Sean Bell, who was killed in a barrage of police bullets outside a Queens club hours before his wedding, and this marked her first television appearance. She was remarkably calm and poised for most of the interview, though very emotional when describing how she found out that Bell, the father of her two children, was dead. But Paultre appears to be focused on justice:

KING: Why -- this is strange to ask it this way, Nicole, but why don't you appear more angry?

Continue reading "Queens Shooting: Fiancee Says "I'm Really Not Angry"; Survivors Speak to Investigators"

Illinois Senator Barack Obama was in New York yesterday as speculating about the 2008 Presidential race started to reach a fever pitch (or as much of a fever pitch as possible this early on). He spoke at a fundraiser for Kids in Distressed situations, saying, "We have an empathy deficit. It's time for a sense of empathy to infuse our politics in America. It is time to stop making excuses for inaction." The Daily News reports his speech "invoked [Robert] Kennedy's famous 1967 trip to Mississippi to expose the horrors of child poverty in America" - which one person thought was a "cheap shot. You don't start your campaign on the mantle of someone else's success." The NY Times notes that while Obama got two standing ovations, "his performance was not flawless: at one point he referred to 'Jose' Posada of the New York Yankees instead of Jorge." And Posada happened to be one of the fundraiser's honorees and was sitting at Obama's table!

Yesterday, the police arrested four people while trying to locate the "fourth man" allegedly at the scene of a fatal police shooting. Marijuana and a loaded gun unconnected to the shooting were seized as well.

Ever since the Saturday police shooting outside a Queens club that killed one man and injured two others, there has been talk of a fourth man in the group. Police have claimed that the undercover officers shot at them because they feared the men were armed, but no weapons were found on the men or in their car. The officers on the scene have insisted a fourth man in a beige jacket was near the car, and the Daily News reported that witnesses picked him out from two lineups. The police hope to speak to him, as they have been looking in the drains near the Kalua Lounge for a dumped gun. But a resident nearby told NY1, "If they find a gun, then none of the kids fingerprints is going to be on it. So that's just a waste of taxpayers' time."