“Shut this city down!” was the painful cry issued at the stunning completion of what Joseph Guzman called a “mockery of a trial,” after Judge Arthur Cooperman acquitted Mike Oliver (31 shots), Gescard Isnora (11 shots) and Michael Cooper (four shots) in the tumultuous Sean Bell case. Outside Queens Criminal Court, some people all but fell out, angry words smacking community affairs officers as emotion-filled Black people pushed to get out of the confined space created outside the courthouse, cordoned off by cops and TV cameras.
The initial community reaction to the police acquittals in the killing of Sean Bell on his wedding day, November 25, 2006, has been more than predictable: anger, frustration and disgust. From initial shock – which had grown men crying in the court, so overcome were they with rage – to huddled planning meets about strategies, to a grassroots call for a complete economic boycott on Saturday May 3.
“I’m not surprised by the verdict at all,” said Bomani of rap group United Front. “I’m just surprised and hurt by the reaction of the people: that New York not did get torn to the ground. But I think one reason is that the Black man in this city has been totally emasculated, to the point that we can get shot down in the street and nothing happens. In California, with Rodney King– he was beaten, not even shot – they turned the city upside down.”
Last year, United Front recorded the powerful and controversial album “50 shots for Sean Bell.” This week, the Brooklyn-Harlem duo is part of a movement calling for a dollar-free Saturday. Bomani stated, “We are shutting down New York City on Saturday May 3 for Sean Bell. We urge all [Black and Latinos] not to spend a single dime anywhere in New York City. No gas, food, no cloth.”
On Tuesday night there was a meeting at the midtown offices of United Health Care Workers 1199 (Valerie Bell’s union), with elected officials, activists and members of the Bell family.
Rev. Al Sharpton, who co-organized the strategy session, sat with Sean’s parents William and Valerie. City Council Member Charles Barron told the AmNews that four committees were set up: civil disobedience, economic boycott, Mother’s Day boycott and a march committee.
“We will be making an announcement about details on Thursday at 7 p.m., at Rev. Daughtry’s House of the Lord Church in Brooklyn (415 Atlantic Avenue, at Bond Street),” said Barron. “People are very passionately committed; we had a diverse gathering with elected officials, clergy, college students and all types of groups. They may have won the case, but they have launched a movement. We are going to pressure the Justice Department to convene a grand jury and send these cops to jail.”
“I think the U.S. Attorney’s actions will depend on their reading of the political climate, as well as an assessment of the strength of the legal case – in that order,” said activist attorney Roger Wareham. “Our options are to find new and creative ways to force the legal system to do what it is supposed to do in theory, i.e., vigorously prosecute and convict people who are truly guilty of criminal acts.”
State Senator Eric Adams told the AmNews he will be part of the initiative to “lead the Democratic conference in what we should be doing legislatively.” He is pushing for, “a special prosecutor and to have a special police investigator who operates out of the attorney general’s office.” The job would be to protect and process the crime scene when someone is killed, seriously injured or likely to die; or it’s a case of corruption.
“There is no reason why a member of the police department should also be the person conducting the investigation. It is the ultimate conflict of interest,” Adams said.
After an emergency meeting Tuesday with Senate and Assembly Democrats, Adams said that the legislation was being drafted, and they were “trying to have it completed before the week is out.”
Adams said defendant cops can’t be tried by civilian standards. “You must judge them on policing standards. They can’t have the right to take away someone’s freedom and human life without having a higher standard that they are judged by.”
Rapper Cormega’s response was blunt but typical of a certain sentiment, “The verdict was a far worse crime because it stripped a dead man of his rights and it stripped a community of hope.”
Since last Friday’s verdict, all over the city there have been impromptu rallies and marches. More police than usual have been patrolling urban areas like Bed-Stuy, Harlem and South Jamaica. An uneasy atmosphere exists.
A sizable segment of the community seems to truly believe that New York City police officers who kill Black people do so with something like diplomatic immunity when it comes to the criminal justice system.
On April 25, 2008, in the packed courtroom of Judge Arthur Cooperman, people awaiting his verdict were completely surrounded by an extra phalanx of court officers – two-by-two in the aisle and hugging the four sides of the courtroom. At exactly 9 a.m. Cooperman came to the bench. Within 10 minutes, after briefly pausing to demand the removal of Trent Benefield’s talkative baby, the soon-to-be-retired judge delivered his stunning verdict. When Cooperman began by talking about the horrors cops faced on vice detail, and the motives, demeanor and inconsistencies of witnesses, it dawned on some in the courtroom what was about to go down. Ruling out “sympathy and emotional response,” he determined that he had to “analyze the mindset of each defendant, not what the victims did.” But the prosecution was ineffective in trying to prove its case, said the judge, and argued the defense case of the cops’ fear that Joseph Guzman had a gun. Without going through each count, Cooperman simply declared each of the defendants not guilty.
The Bell family, sitting three rows from the front, looked shocked. Somebody began sobbing, Benefield stormed out, the court awoke from its temporary stupor and exited as the defendants reveled in their sudden good fortune. Sharpton helped a devastated Nicole Paultre-Bell out of the room.
It was pure chaos outside the courtroom. For 20 minutes or so, the Bell family and those of Guzman and Benefield conferenced in a room, while rows of court officers – some with bullet-proof vests on – lined the hall way. Outside was frantic as the word spread quickly. When the families emerged was when the crowd, feeling collectively disrespected, agitated a little louder, and some pushed against link-armed cops a little harder.
The victims and the families brushed past waiting journalists and headed straight to the cemetery, to visit with Sean Elijah Bell.
An enraged Sharpton boomed that justice had been “aborted” and that the community might decide to march on the homes of the judge or the acquitted officers, or One Police Plaza.
“We need to visit this judge en masse. We’re gonna be strategic. We’re gonna shut this city down,” the minister said as he urged attendees at the post-verdict House of Justice rally to sign up for the “Freedom Brigade.”
Michael Hardy, the civil attorney for Nicole Paultre-Bell, Guzman and Benefield, said that the Bell family and the victims were “blatantly robbed” – and this after co-operating. “This system will give you nothing. It leaves you raw and you’ve got to respond to that,” he said.
“The court has let us down. But I will keep praying,” Nicole Paultre-Bell told the AmNews the day after the verdict. “I will be at every march, every rally for Sean,” said the mother of two young girls.
On Tuesday a host of elected officials, including Rep. John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Charles Rangel, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, met with Sharpton, the Bell family and Guzman and Benefield. In the Jamaica Avenue office of Cong. Greg Meeks, the Congressional delegation discussed the demand for a Federal investigation into the violation of the civil rights of Sean Bell, Guzman and Benefield.
“It’s a crime against humanity,” said Rangel.
“The two most powerful members of Congress came to New York and disagreed with Cooperman’s decision,” said Sharpton of Conyers and Rangel.
“I’m outraged at a blatant abdication of justice,” Queens Council Member James Sanders told the AmNews. Bell was, and Guzman is his constituent, said the city legislator. “The community is outraged: We feel that there was never an attempt to bring justice here. My personal view was that the strategy our New York City community of justice seekers had was not holistic. We put all our eggs in one basket in the legal arena, and we started acting like fine English gentlemen. We did not protest. We did not take it to the streets. We were told if we raised our voices, if we showed our resolve, that they may take this trial away from us. We allowed them to set the pace and the path – and we followed it to our detriment. We need to take this back to the street and have a holistic approach, a legal approach, a mobilization approach and a religious approach – and all of us work in harmony.
“We cannot tell our adversaries that we are going to fight them with one hand tied behind our back and punch them on the left side of their head every other Friday.”
Sanders told the AmNews, “I wasn’t happy with the prosecution. I thought that they presented a weak case.”
History has shown that our most successful struggles have been won using a multi-pronged approach, Sanders analyzed. The greatest victories have been achieved, he said, “When we were creative, innovative and always came up with something new.”
Brooklyn City Council Member Charles Barron asserted, “There’s no legal rationale for what Judge Cooperman did. He was obviously a pro-cop judge and had no intention of convicting the three defendants. By talking about the victims the way he did, by talking about the demeanor of the witnesses, and about the lawsuit – which they do have a right to file – he showed his obvious disdain.”
Barron, who along with Cong. Meeks and State Sen. Malcolm Smith was in court for the verdict, slammed the prosecution as ineffective.
“This is why Marq Claxton from 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement and myself called for a special prosecutor from the beginning. They have said to us that they haven’t got past Dred Scot. It is incumbent on us to protect ourselves by any means necessary. We have the God-given and constitutional right to do that.
“Alton Maddox has said over the years that they should abolish bench trials. When police officers kill innocent civilians, as public servants they should be forced to face a public jury – not just a judge. Right after Sean Bell, six Black men died at the hands of police – they have not eased up during the duration of this trial. Every day Black and Latino men were being harassed, beaten or picked up for riding bikes on the side walk. These police are out of control. While we engage in civil disobedience on a daily basis, every day we are being subjected to police terror and we have to address that.”
“If young people rise up or do what they need to in order to protect themselves from killer cops sanctioned by the system to kill them with impunity – what would you tell them? Because they are now target practice, and it is open season on them: Amadou Diallo – 41 bullets; Sean Bell – 50 bullets. What is the appropriate response? We are looking at creating a Malcolm-King Community Patrol to prevent police and community violence. You’ve got to stop the criminals in blue jeans and the ones in blue uniforms.”
While boycotts and confabs are being discussed in some quarters, elsewhere direct action is being considered, despite what Mayor Michael Bloomberg and presidential candidate Barack Obama have said.
“The system has given its verdict in this case. We must deliver the people’s verdict in the streets. Those cops were guilty,” said activist Carl Dix. “Take it to the streets! Keep it in the streets!”
Planning a Day of Mourning, New York State Conference NAACP President Hazel N. Dukes said, “The NAACP demands that the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division follow through on its reported monitoring of the case and launch a thorough investigation.
“For us, this case raises the overwhelming concern that New York City Police are often out of control. To acquit on all charges is inconceivable and unacceptable.”
Marq Claxton, spokesperson for 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement, said, “It is hypocritical for people to claim that there is a need for comprehensive reform in the NYPD, yet support and heap accolades on Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. It is as if they don’t realize that he created the perfect environment that led to the death of Sean Bell. The commissioner himself is responsible for the strategies and initiatives that have led to the further oppression and killing of innocent Black people, yet well meaning, intelligent people continue to give him a pass and a pat on the back. Everyone should be on record as to whether Ray Kelly should remain as police commissioner. His record in our community clearly shows that he should not.”
