The verdict is in on the Sean Bell case. I have no link.

[MADem]

They're announcing it on the radio now. The detectives who shot the guy (he was at his bachelor party and it was late at night, in NYC) were COMPLETELY acquitted...they're saying that there are dozens of Bell supporters outside the courthouse, and they are not happy.

Eight counts--not guilty all the way down.

[cal04]

1. Officers acquitted in Sean Bell's death

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/ny-nybell0426,0,3279195.story

Three detectives were acquitted Friday morning in the fatal shooting of Sean Bell in November 2006.

In a packed courtroom in Queens State Supreme Court in Kew Gardens, Judge Arthur Cooperman ruled that the detectives -- Michael Oliver, Gescard Isnora and Marc Cooper -- bore no criminal responsibility for Bell's death or the wounding of his two friends, Trent Benefield and Joseph Guzman.

Two of the three New York Police Department detectives involved in the shooting death of the unarmed Bell, who was killed in a hail of gunfire outside a Jamaica club just hours before he was to be married in 2006, had faced a maximum of 25 years in prison if convicted.

As word filtered out moments after 9:15 a.m., people in the large crowd outside the courthouse began to shout and scream.

Anger Outside the Courthouse
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/25/the-scene-at-the-courthouse/index.html?hp

[annm4peace]

3. Sad.. How could the jury do this ?

The undercover cops were out of control. I would have tried to get away and if I had a gun I probably pull it out and fired back, unlike Sean Bell who didn't have a gun.

How were this kids to know they weren't being shot at by thugs ? How could they hear cops saying they were cops. These cops just were out for a killing ?


Sick, Sick, Sick.

[soleft]

4. I think it was a judge's verdict - no jury

[Lady-Damai]

5. Is anyone really shock by the verdict?

The same thing will happen again.

[HamdenRice]

2. One officer emptied his pistol; reloaded; emptied it again

Right, they are innocent, aren't they?

[MadHound]

6. Once again, cops prove to be above the law,

At worst they get a slap on the wrist, but as we see today, most of the time they can get away with murder. That's part of the problem with today's police, no accountability, which draws in people who want to go on their own little power trip. Sad, fucking sad.

[Floyd53]

7. You're innocent until proven dead

New York Times

“The court did not view the victims or the N.Y.P.D. as being on trial here,” Justice Arthur J. Cooperman said in a packed courtroom Friday in delivering his verdict on the detectives charged in Mr. Bell’s death. But much of the most damning language was indeed directed at the victims, both at behavior that the judge saw as fomenting the tension that led to the shooting, and then at statements on the stand that he found dubious.

In his words the judge clearly favored the testimony of the detectives, given before a grand jury last year, over that of prosecution witnesses and, in particular, the two men wounded in the shooting, Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield.

The decision is notable for what it does not mention: one of the most explosive elements of the trial, the fact that 50 bullets were fired at three unarmed men, 31 of them by Detective Michael Oliver, who reloaded in the middle of the fusillade.

At the same time, Justice Cooperman makes it clear that it was his job to decide whether prosecutors proved their case — that the officers were not justified when they opened fire — and not whether they had performed their jobs poorly. That, he wrote, would be up to others to decide.

My question is: do innocent people have the right to defend themselves when attacked by police? Or is it their duty to die as free citizens when they are mistaken for armed criminals. This is such a ridiculous case it's hard take the Judge seriously.