Sorry for the sensationalist tone. I didn't write this.
Cops shoot groom dead
Hurt 2 pals in barrage of bullets
By VERONIKA BELENKAYA, ALISON GENDAR, MIKE JACCARINO
and ROBERT F. MOORE
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Cops blasted 50 bullets at three unarmed men near a Queens strip club early yesterday, killing a groom hours before his wedding, wounding two of his pals and spurring outraged relatives of the victims to call the shooting unjustified.
"Today was his wedding day - not his death day," said .Oniaja Shepherd, 43, whose nephew 23-year-old Sean Bell was slain by police gunfire. "We were supposed to go to a wedding. Now we're going to a funeral."
An undercover detective, three plainclothes detectives and a police officer in civilian clothes hit Bell's car with 21 rounds about 4 a.m. after the Queens man twice rammed his vehicle into an unmarked NYPD van, police said.
One cop fired 31 times, pausing to reload, sources said.
Bell, a former high school baseball phenom who had been celebrating his bachelor party at the strip club, was fatally hit by two shots to the neck and arm. Two of his friends in the car were rushed to a nearby hospital with bullet wounds, police said.
Cops said there may have been a fourth person in the vehicle who fled.
No weapons were found on Bell or his friends, and no guns were found in their bullet-riddled car near the Kalua Cabaret in Jamaica, police said.
"Our hearts go out to them," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said of Bell's family.
Bell was at the strip club with about 20 friends, police sources said. Two undercover cops, looking to make prostitution arrests, were also inside.
About 3 a.m., one of the undercover cops heard a bouncer suggest to a dancer that he had a gun, and the cops went outside to warn plainclothes officers in a nearby van, the sources said.
An hour later, a fight erupted outside the club. Bell, Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield were allegedly among eight men yelling at another man, Kelly said.
One of the undercover cops heard Bell shout, "Let's f--- him up," and Guzman say, "Yo - go get my gun," Kelly said.
"It's getting hot on Liverpool, for real. I think there's a gun," an undercover warned his lieutenant, Kelly said.
One undercover stayed at the club and the other followed the men as they got into Bell's car on Liverpool St. Bell drove forward, brushing that officer before slamming into the unmarked police van as it rounded the corner, Kelly said. The undercover officer then identified himself as a cop and fired the first round, sources said.
Bell threw the car into reverse and slammed into a building, then drove forward into the van again. Plainclothes cops poured from the van. Five officers at the scene began shooting.
Kelly said the investigation was ongoing. He stopped short of judging the actions of the officers involved. In 2004, he had quickly characterized the shooting of 19-year-old Timothy Stansbury by a Brooklyn cop as unjustified.
Although NYPD sources said the undercover cop at yesterday's incident had identified himself as an officer before police fired, Kelly said no witnesses had confirmed that account and brass had not interviewed the cops, pending a grand jury probe.
"It's not a 'good shoot,' " one veteran investigator said. "It's a big mess."
Mayor Bloomberg issued a statement last night.
"Although it is too early to draw conclusions about this morning's shootings in Jamaica, Queens, we know that the NYPD officers on the scene had reason to believe that an altercation involving a firearm was about to happen and were trying to stop it," Bloomberg said.
He said he had been "in touch with community leaders" throughout the day, and a mayoral spokesman said the leaders included the Rev. Al Sharpton.
Bell's loved ones joined with Sharpton to condemn the cops' actions and demand information.
Lorenzo Kinred, who was at the bachelor party, said he spoke to a wounded Benefield before he was put into an ambulance.
"The police didn't identify who they were," Benefield said, according to Kinred, 32. "They just pulled guns out."
"Sean \[Bell\] saw a guy dressed just like us pulling a gun," Benefield added, Kinred said. "He just wanted to try and drive away."
At Jamaica Hospital, where Bell died, Sharpton declared, "Police do not have the right to be the judge, jury and executioners."
Sharpton later visited Guzman, 31, who had been in the front passenger seat, and Benefield, who was in the back seat, at Mary Immaculate Hospital. Guzman, who was in critical condition, was shot at least 11 times on the right side of his body from his neck to his feet and had 17 entrance or exit wounds. Benefield, who was in stable condition, was shot three times.
Sharpton said it was "outrageous at best" that the wounded men were handcuffed to their hospital beds. "Where are they going?" he asked.
Kelly said the men were unshackled as soon as it was discovered they were not armed.
"This was supposed to be a special day," said Bell's father, William. "No one in life should experience this kind of pain. It's not natural. A part of me is gone."
Les Paultre, the father of Bell's fiancée, Nicole Paultre, told cops: "As you go home to your wives claiming you did your job, I want you to know you killed an innocent man."
And the fiancée's mom, Laura Harper-Paultre, accused cops of killing Bell "in cold blood," adding, "Cops are very comfortable killing black men."
But police adamantly denied the shooting was racially motivated, and Kelly said two of the cops who fired are black, two are white and the fifth is Hispanic.
Bell's 22-year-old fiancée was at a bridal shower on Long Island when the dad of her two kids was killed. Puffy-eyed, Paultre arrived at the scene of the shooting yesterday morning. "I am the intended bride," she said before collapsing.
At least two bullets fired during the altercation hit a parked car and another slug flew into a nearby house. A bullet also whizzed by a pair of Port Authority cops standing on an elevated AirTrain platform.
Bell's mom, Valerie, said cops hadn't told her anything about the shooting. "They're covering up, because they know the police did wrong," she charged. "You know how society works. They label all African-American men the same. They should have pulled out a badge before they started shooting."
With Peter Kadushin and Warren Woodberry Jr.
Source
Here's an excerpt from another citation
'On Sunday, the group 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care said it is issuing a vote of no confidence in Kelly over the shooting. It is also calling for the removal of the chief of the Organized Crime Control Bureau, Anthony Izzo, who it says created the undercover unit involved in the incident. Additionally, the group wants a re-examination of what it says is a policy that allows officers from the organized crime control unit to consume alcohol on the job.
“Who knows whether or not that was a factor in this particular shooting?” said Marq Claxton, a retired police detective and one of the founders of the group. A police spokeswoman on Sunday did not immediately offer comment on the group’s demands.
This isn’t the first time the NYPD has come under scrutiny over police-involved shootings. In 1999, police killed Amadou Diallo, an unarmed West African immigrant who was shot 19 times in the Bronx. The four officers in that case were acquitted of criminal charges.
And in 2003, Ousmane Zongo was shot to death during a police raid. The 43-year-old, a native of the western African country of Burkina Faso, repaired art and musical instruments in Manhattan. He was hit four times, twice in the back.'
Bloody 'ell.