Police acquitted over groom-to-be shooting

Three US detectives were acquitted of all charges today in the 50-shot killing of an unarmed groom-to-be on his wedding day.

Justice Arthur Cooperman delivered the verdict in a New York courtroom packed with spectators including victim Sean Bell’s fiancee and parents, and at least 200 people gathered outside the building.

The high-profile case put the New York Police Department at the centre of another dispute involving allegations of excessive firepower.

The verdict provoked an outpouring of emotions. Bell’s fiancee immediately walked out of the room; his mother cried and gasps were heard throughout the room.

Shouts of “No!” and “Not guilty!” erupted in the crowd outside the courthouse, and dozens of people began crying.

Mr Bell, a 23-year-old black man, was killed in a hail of gunfire outside a strip club in Queens on November 25 2006 – his wedding day – as he was leaving his stag party with two friends.

Officers Michael Oliver, 36, and Gescard Isnora, 29, stood trial for manslaughter while Officer Marc Cooper, 40, was charged only with reckless endangerment. Two other officers were not charged.

Oliver fired 31 shots; Isnora fired 11 rounds; and Cooper shot four times.

The officers, complaining that pre-trial publicity had unfairly painted them as cold-blooded killers, opted to have the judge decide the case rather than a jury.

The judge indicated that the police officers’ version of events was more credible than the victims’ version.

“The people have not proved beyond a reasonable doubt that each defendant was not justified in firing," he said.

A conviction on manslaughter could have brought up to 25 years in prison; the penalty for reckless endangerment, is a year behind bars.

The case brought back painful memories of other NYPD shootings, such as the 1999 shooting of Amadou Diallo – an African immigrant who was gunned down in a hail of 41 bullets by police officers who mistook his wallet for a gun. The acquittal of the officers in that case created a storm of protest, with hundreds arrested after taking to the streets in demonstration.

The mood surrounding this case has been muted by comparison, although Mr Bell’s fiancee, parents and their supporters have held rallies demanding that the officers – two of whom are black – be held accountable.

Outside the courthouse, many in the crowd began weeping after hearing the verdict. Others were enraged, swearing and screaming “Murderers! Murderers!” or “KKK!”.

The nearly two-month trial was marked by deeply divergent accounts on the part of defence lawyers and prosecutors.

The defence painted the victims as drunken thugs who the officers believed were armed and dangerous. Prosecutors sought to convince the judge that the victims had been minding their own business, and that the officers were inept, trigger-happy aggressors.

None of the officers took the witness stand in his own defence. Instead, Justice Cooperman heard transcripts of the officers testifying before a grand jury, saying they believed they had good reason to use deadly force.

The judge also heard testimony from Mr Bell’s two companions – Trent Benefield and Joseph Guzman – who insisted the incident erupted without warning.

Mr Benefield and Mr Guzman were both wounded; Mr Guzman still has four bullets lodged in his body.

The victims and defendants were set on a fateful collision course by a pair of innocuous decisions: Mr Bell’s to have a last-minute stag party at Kalua Cabaret, and the undercover detectives’ to investigate reports of prostitution at the club.

As the club closed around 4am, Sanchez and Isnora claimed they overheard Mr Bell and his friends first flirt with women, then taunt a stranger who responded by putting his right hand in his pocket as if he had a gun.

Mr Guzman, they testified, said: “Yo, go get my gun” – something Mr Bell’s friends denied.

Isnora said he decided to arm himself, call for backup and tail the trio as they went around the corner and got into Mr Bell’s car.

He claimed that after warning the men to halt, Mr Bell pulled away and rammed an unmarked police van with Oliver at the wheel.

The detective also alleged that Mr Guzman made a sudden move as if he were reaching for a gun.

“I yelled ’Gun!’ and fired,” he said. “In my mind, I knew (Guzman) had a gun.”

Mr Benefield and Mr Guzman testified that there were no orders. Instead, Guzman said, Isnora “appeared out of nowhere” with a gun drawn and shot him in the shoulder – the first of 16 shots to enter his body.

“That’s all there was – gunfire,” he said. “There wasn’t nothing else.”

With tyres screeching, glass breaking and bullets flying, the officers claimed that they believed they were the ones under fire. Oliver responded by emptying his semiautomatic pistol, reloading, and emptying it again, as the supervisor dived for cover.

The truth emerged when the smoke cleared: There was no weapon inside Mr Bell’s blood-splattered car.