The Sean Bell shooting incident took place in the New York City borough of
Queens, New York, United States, on November 25, 2006, when three men were
shot a total of fifty times by a team of both plainclothes and undercover NYPD
officers, killing Sean Bell on the morning before his wedding, and severely
wounding two of his friends, Trent Benefield and Joseph Guzman. The
incident sparked fierce criticism of the police from members of the public and
drew comparisons to the 1999 killing of Amadou Diallo. Three of the five
detectives involved in the shooting went to trial on charges of first and
second-degree manslaughter, first and second-degree assault, and second-degree
reckless endangerment, and were found not guilty.
Background Sean Bell was a nephew of the current
University of Tulsa basketball coach, Frank Haith. He pitched baseball for
John Adams High School in Ozone Park, and in his senior year he had an 11-0
record, with a 2.30 E.R.A. and 97 strikeouts in 62.2 innings. He also
studied acting in Flushing, Queens. Bell held odd jobs after the birth of his
daughter, Jada, on December 16, 2002. His fiancee, Nicole Paultre, told Larry
King that Bell was studying to be an electrician and was unemployed when the
shooting occurred. Shooting incident
The night of his death, Bell was holding his bachelor party at Club Kalua, a
strip club that was being investigated by undercover police over accusations
that the owners fostered prostitution. The New York Post reported that Joseph
Guzman had an argument with a man outside the bar, and threatened to get a
gun. One of Bell's friends reportedly said, "Yo, get my gun," as they left the
club. Thinking a shooting was about to take place, an African American
plain-clothes officer named Gescard Isnora followed Bell and his companions.
He alerted his backup team, who confronted Bell and his companions
outside. According to Isnora, he "held out his badge, identified himself as a
police officer, and ordered the driver to stop." Instead, Bell accelerated the
car, striking Isnora, and then collided with an unmarked police minivan. Isnora
said he thought he saw Guzman reach for a gun. He yelled a warning to the other
policemen and they opened fire on the car. Five policemen joined in, firing
about 50 bullets into Bell's car in only seconds.
Accounts of the event conflict with that provided by the police. According to
Joseph Guzman, the plain clothes detectives never identified themselves
when they approached with drawn weapons. New York Daily News reported that the
officers failed to warn Bell before opening fire, beginning to shoot as soon
as they left their cars. A toxicology report showed that Bell was legally
intoxicated at the time he was shot. An attorney for Bell's family replied, "No
matter what his blood-alcohol level was, he's a victim."
Isnora, the policeman who initiated the shooting, claimed later that he saw a
fourth man in the car, who fled the scene, possibly with the alleged weapon.
One of Bell's friends, Jean Nelson, was speculated to have been the fourth man.
Nelson admitted he was present, but denied being in the car or having a
weapon. Critics suggest that Isnora invented the fourth man to justify the
shooting and avoid conviction by a public jury. New York Daily News
columnist Juan Gonzalez reported that in the hours immediately after the
shooting, there was no mention of a fourth man in police calls and no search
was launched for an allegedly armed man. This contradicts claims that the police
searched the neighborhood for the missing man. According to The New York
Times, a preliminary police report said: "... there was no meaningful discussion
of a fourth man, a mysterious figure who some in the Police Department have
suggested may have been present along with the three men who were shot. None
of the witnesses whose accounts are in the report speaks of someone who may
have fled — perhaps possessing a gun — and there are no indications that the
police at the time were seeking anyone who may have left the scene."
According to Michael Palladino, head of the police detectives union, a man
working as a janitor in a nearby building told the detectives that he had
seen a black man fleeing the scene, and that the man had fired at least once at
the police. The janitor claimed he had then heard a detective shouting "police,
police." However, ballistic evidence showed no evidence of any weapon having
been fired except those of the officers. In an interview on Larry King Live, Al
Sharpton, accompanied by Paultre, stated that according to his conversations with
eyewitnesses, none of the three men mentioned a gun while leaving the club.
Sharpton also said that it would have been impossible for anyone in the car to
have heard the police, and said they were likely to fear they were being
car-jacked. However, several of the witnesses were paid by Sharpton. The
NYPD Detectives union and others complained that the payments brought
into question the witnesses' credibility. Sharpton replied, "How can
[the Detectives Endowment Association] support the detectives and I can't
support the victims?" Five of the seven officers took part in
the shooting. Detective Paul Headley fired one shot, Officer Michael Carey
fired three times, Officer Marc Cooper four, Officer Gescard Isnora eleven, and
veteran officer Michael Oliver emptied two full magazines, firing 31 times with
a 9mm handgun, pausing to reload at least once.
An autopsy showed that Bell was struck four times in the neck and torso. Guzman
was shot 19 times Benefield, who was in the back seat, was hit three times. Both
men were taken to Mary Immaculate Hospital. Guzman was listed in critical
condition and Benefield was in stable condition. Both survived the shooting.
Benefield was released from the hospital on December 5, 2006, while Guzman was
released on January 25, 2007. Surveillance cameras at the Port
Authority's Jamaica AirTrain station a half block away from the shooting site
recorded one of the bullets shattering the station's glass window, narrowly
missing a bystander and two Port Authority patrolmen standing on the
elevated platform. Response to the shooting
New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg has said "it sounds to me like excessive
force was used," and has called the shooting "inexplicable" and
"unacceptable". Ex-New York governor George E. Pataki has also stated that
the shooting was excessive. Kelly has put the five officers involved on paid
administrative leave and stripped them of their weapons, a move the New York
Times called "forceful". He told the Times that the officers were stripped of
their guns because "there were, and are, too many unanswered questions." Both
Bloomberg and Kelly have also noted that the shooting was possibly in violation
of department guidelines prohibiting shooting at a moving vehicle, even if
the vehicle is being used as a weapon. The Public Advocate extended condolences
to Bell's former fiancée and family following the killing.
Thousands of people took to the streets to protest against the amount of force
used the weekend following Bell's death with protests continuing into the
following week. Some have noted the similarity between
the incident and past shootings of unarmed people, such as Amadou Diallo
and Ousmane Zongo. The family has designated Al Sharpton as their advisor.
On December 7, 2006, Nicole Paultre legally changed her name to Nicole
Paultre Bell to "honor the memory" of Sean Bell. New York State laws require a
couple to obtain a marriage license prior to a wedding, and "although the
marriage license is issued immediately, the marriage ceremony may not take place
within 24 hours from the exact time that the license was issued." According to
Nicole Paultre's attorney, a posthumous wedding was impossible since no marriage
license had yet been signed. On March 5, 2007, it was announced that
a Rikers Island inmate offered to pay an undercover police officer posing as a
hitman to behead New York City police commissioner Raymond Kelly and bomb
police headquarters in retaliation for the incident.
On March 25, 2007, New York Daily News reported that an unnamed Queens drug
dealer, after being arrested, alleged that Sean Bell had shot him the previous
year on July 13, 2006, over a drug turf dispute. Police sources called the drug
dealer's account credible, but could not rule out the possibility of the drug
dealer falsely identifying Sean Bell to garner favor with authorities. The
attorney representing the Bell family, Nicole Paultre, and the two other
occupants of the vehicle who were wounded during the shooting, denounced
this development, saying, "We expected them to throw dirt at us and they are
throwing dirt at us." NYPD Internal Affairs Bureau detectives say the
dealer's tale has no direct bearing on the police shooting of Bell, though some
legal experts said that it could help the defense by portraying Sean Bell as
possibly armed and dangerous. Investigation and case
= Criminal indictment= At that time, some activists called for
a special prosecutor in the case, but New York's then-Governor Eliot Spitzer
said he did not see the need for it although then-Attorney General Andrew
Cuomo promised to keep a watch on the criminal proceedings. The Queens
district attorney's office interviewed over 100 witnesses and presented more
than 500 exhibits to a grand jury. An issue considered by the grand jury was
the New York State Penal Code's description of circumstances under which
a police officer can use deadly force: "The use of deadly physical force is
necessary to defend the police officer or peace officer or another person from
what the officer reasonably believes to be the use or imminent use of deadly
physical force." On March 16, 2007, three of the five
police officers involved in the shooting were indicted by a grand jury. Officer
Gescard Isnora, who fired the first shot, and Officer Michael Oliver, who
fired 31 of the 50 shots, were charged with first and second-degree
manslaughter, second-degree reckless endangerment and first and second-degree
assault, while Detective Marc Cooper was charged with two counts of reckless
endangerment. All three detectives pleaded not guilty at the arraignment
hearing on March 19, 2007. Detectives Isnora and Oliver were released on bail
and Detective Cooper on his own recognizance. Oliver and Isnora
initially faced up to 25 years of prison for the charges.
The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, Second Department, denied a
motion by the detectives' attorneys to move the trial to a venue outside of
Queens. Following the adverse ruling, the detectives waived a jury trial and
instead submitted to a bench trial. The District Attorney Richard Brown has
faced some criticism from activists who believe he did not question the police
officers involved quickly enough. = Trial and acquittal on all charges=
On April 25, 2008, all three of the police officers indicted were acquitted
on all counts. The defendants opted to have Justice Arthur J. Cooperman make a
ruling rather than a jury. The ruling was handed down in a state supreme court
in Queens. A key defense forensic witness was
Alexander Jason, a crime scene analyst and ballistics expert who disproved
several of the prosecution's main points relating to the physical evidence. Among
them was the timing of the incident. After doing tests with an NYPD pistol,
Jason demonstrated that the 31 shots fired by one detective could have been
done in about 12 seconds – not several minutes. Using high speed video during
ballistic testing, Jason demonstrated that bullets fired through a car window
would project glass both inside and outside the car and that this could be
interpreted as shots coming from inside. Another of Jason's key points was that
the person in the back seat of Bell's car was not shot while he was running
away as he claimed, but while inside the car. Jason used computer generated 3D
models to display some of his findings. In his ruling, Justice Cooperman stated
that testimony by Guzman and Benefield did not make sense. He also cited the
fact that they had a pending 50-million-dollar lawsuit against the
city. After the ruling was made, the family, led by Sharpton and several
others went to Bell's graveside in Port Washington, Long Island for a memorial
service. Although the officers were acquitted,
the three of them and their commanding officer were fired or forced to resign
on March 24, 2012. After acquittal
= "Slowdown" protest= On May 7, 2008, Sharpton led a series of
protests in New York City. Hundreds took to the streets in Manhattan and Brooklyn
as part of the citywide "slowdown" effort led by Sharpton and his National
Action Network. The crowd made its way to the streets, stopping the flow of
traffic in many vital areas of the city. This led to police action, and the
arrest of over 200 people, including Sharpton himself. Sharpton was arrested
without incident at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge. Bell's parents, his
former fiancée, Nicole Paultre Bell, and the two shooting victims who survived,
Trent Benefield and Joseph Guzman, were also arrested.
= Civil case= On May 18, 2010, U.S. District Judge
Sterling Johnson, Jr. of the United States District Court for the Eastern
District of New York lifted a stay on the civil lawsuit brought by Nicole
Paultre Bell against the City of New York. On July 27, 2010 a settlement was
reached. New York City agreed to pay Sean Bell's family $3.25 million. Joseph
Guzman, 34, who uses a cane and a leg brace and has four bullets lodged in his
body and Trent Benefield, 26, two passengers in Bell's car who attended
his bachelor party and were wounded in the shooting, were to receive $3 million
and $900,000 respectively in the settlement, for a total of $7.15
million. Paultre Bell said "I believe the settlement is fair, but the most
important thing is that our fight, my fight, doesn't end here. No amount of
money can provide closure." New York City Corporation Counsel stated "The
city regrets the loss of life in this tragic case and we share our deepest
condolences with the Bell family." The head of the New York City Detectives
Endowment Association said he thought the settlement was a joke. "The
detectives were exonerated . . . and now the taxpayer is on the hook for $7
million and the attorneys are in line to get $2 million without suffering a
scratch." Guzman said the settlement did not change the underlying reality that
the lives of black and Hispanic men were not worth much in New York; he said that
the incident was bound to be repeated. = NYPD edits to Wikipedia article=
On March 13, 2015, Capital New York and other news organizations reported that
50 of the 15,000 IP addresses belonging to the NYPD were associated with edits,
dating back to 2006, to English Wikipedia articles, including the
article on the Sean Bell shooting incident. These IP addresses geolocate
to NYPD headquarters at 1 Police Plaza. Detective Cheryl Crispin, a NYPD
spokeswoman, said that "the matter is under internal review."
Tributes The Nicole Paultre Bell "When It's Real,
It's Forever" non-profit organization was started in memory of Sean Bell.
Rappers David Banner, Nicki Minaj, Prodigy, Immortal Technique and the
Jamaica, Queens-based rap group G-Unit, The Game and Chamillionaire have each
referenced the Sean Bell case in one of their songs. G-Unit dedicated the
opening track to their T.O.S: Terminate on Sight album to Sean Bell and also
paid tribute to him in the thank-you section of the liner notes. Nicki Minaj
dedicated part of her verse New York Minute to Sean Bell "There's gotta be a
heaven cause Sean Bell will never get to make it to his wedding." Chamillionaire
referenced the case on the Mixtape Messiah 2 disc at the end of the song
"Ridin' Overseas" where he says, "Rest in peace to Sean Bell, Chamillitary
man". The Game dedicated the controversial song "911 is a joke" to
Sean Bell. The Game dedicated the song "My Life" to Sean Bell as well.
Swizz Beatz, Cassidy, Maino, Styles P, Talib Kweli, Red Cafe & Drag-On recorded
a song entitled "Stand Up" in which they share their thoughts on the Sean Bell
shooting. Rapper Jay Z set up a trust fund for the
children of Sean Bell. = Sean Bell Way=
The New York City Council voted to designate Liverpool Street from 94th to
101st Avenues in Queens as "Sean Bell Way" in his memory. The naming ceremony
took place on May 18, 2010.40.6983°N 73.8085°W﻿ / 40.6983; -73.8085﻿
See also Contagious shooting
Jean-Charles de Menezes Johnny Gammage
Ousmane Zongo Amadou Diallo
Nightlife legislation of the United States
List of killings by law enforcement officers in the United States
References