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NEW YORK - Three detectives were acquitted Friday in the 50-shot
killing of an unarmed groom-to-be on his wedding day, a case that put
the NYPD at the center of another dispute involving allegations of
excessive firepower.
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Scores of police officers surrounded the courthouse to guard against
potential chaos, and as news of the verdict spread, many in the crowd
began weeping. Others were enraged, swearing and screaming "Murderers!
Murderers!" or "KKK!"

Inside the courtroom, spectators gasped. Sean Bell's fiancee
immediately walked out of the room; his mother cried.

Bell, a 23-year-old black man, was killed in a hail of gunfire outside
a seedy strip club in Queens on Nov. 25, 2006, as he was leaving his
bachelor party with two friends. The case ignited the emotions of
people across the city and led to widespread protests among those who
felt the officers used unnecessary force.

Officers Michael Oliver, 36, and Gescard Isnora, 29, stood trial for
manslaughter, while Officer Marc Cooper, 40, was charged with reckless
endangerment. Two other shooters weren't charged. Oliver squeezed off
31 shots; Isnora fired 11 rounds; and Cooper shot four times.

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.

Moments after the verdict was announced Friday, Trent Benefield, a
friend of Bell's who was wounded in the hail of gunfire, staggered
down the courthouse steps with a look of angry disbelief on his face,
a friend's arms tightly wrapped around his shoulders.

"Not guilty. Not guilty. It's real," he said, while dozens of people
wearing Bell's face on hats, T-shirts and buttons burst into sobs.

Within an hour, the crowd of about 200 people had settled down and
dispersed. Despite a few scuffles between members of the throng and
police officers, no arrests were made.

William Hardgraves, 48, an electrician from Harlem, brought his 12-
year-old son and 23-year-old daughter to hear the verdict. "I hoped it
would be different this time. They shot him 50 times," Hardgraves
said. "But of course, it wasn't."

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

The judge, Justice Arthur Cooperman, indicated when he delivered the
verdict that the 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.

Hours later, the officers appeared at a news conference.

"I'd like to say sorry to the Bell family for the tragedy," Cooper
said, thanking God, his lawyers and the police officers who supported
him.

The U.S. attorney's office said after the verdict that it had been
monitoring the state's prosecution and would conduct an independent
review of the case. The Rev. Al Sharpton, who represents Bell's
family, called for a federal investigation.

"This verdict is one round down, but the fight is far from over,"
Sharpton said on his radio show. "What we saw in court today was not a
miscarriage of justice. Justice didn't miscarry. This was an abortion
of justice."

Michael Palladino, president of the Detectives Endowment Association,
responded angrily to Sharpton's suggestion that the verdicts were
unfair.

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