Over at Doctrine Wars (http://doctrinewars.blogspot.com/) there is an interesting post about the acquittal of the police officers in the Sean Bell case.

A group of undercover officers working in a gun- and drug-plagued strip joint in Queens had good reason to believe that a party leaving the club was armed and about to shoot an adversary. When one of the undercovers identified himself as an officer, the car holding the party twice tried to run him down. The officer started firing while yelling to the car’s occupants: “Let me see your hands.” His colleagues, believing they were under attack, fired as well, eventually shooting off 50 rounds and killing the driver, Sean Bell. No gun was found in the car, but witnesses and video footage confirm that a fourth man in the party fled the scene once the altercation began. Bell and the other men with him all had been arrested for illegal possession of guns in the past; one of Bell’s companions that night, Joseph Guzman, had spent considerable time in prison, including for an armed robbery in which he shot at his victim.”
Sean Bell getting shot was just—using the logic of Malcom X and Obama’s spiritual advisor—His chicken’s coming home to roost.

I’ve been wondering about the real circumstances of this shooting for a while. Looks like the groom was not all that innocent after all…

God bless,
Laurel

Laurel,

No the people shot were not nice people. I don’t know everything about this case, but I still tend to think this was not justifiable shooting from what I have read. 50 shoots were fired and many of them missed endangering a large number of innocent people. I also do like the idea that police are able to shoot people they “believe” to be armed and dangerous. NYPD guidelines also prohibit shooting at vehicles. What really happened still remains unclear, on a side note none of the cops in this case were white.

When I first read about the case, all I saw was the “groom shot on his wedding day” spin.

A textbook case of how the media slants the news…

God bless,
Laurel

Oh, for goodness’ sake…Al Sharpton is in on the act. At least this time he’s protesting a form of “black on black” violence, since two of the three police officers charged were black.

Sharpton vows to ‘close this city’ after officer acquittals
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080426/D909P8SG0.html

NEW YORK (AP) - Hundreds of angry people marched through Harlem on Saturday after the Rev. Al Sharpton promised to “close this city down” to protest the acquittals of three police detectives in the 50-shot barrage that killed a groom on his wedding day and wounded two friends.

“We strategically know how to stop the city so people stand still and realize that you do not have the right to shoot down unarmed, innocent civilians,” Sharpton told an overflow crowd of several hundred people at his National Action Network office in the historically black Manhattan neighborhood. “This city is going to deal with the blood of Sean Bell.”

Sharpton was joined by the family of 23-year-old Sean Bell - a black man - and a friend of Bell who was wounded in the 2006 shooting outside a Queens strip club. Two of the three officers charged were also black.

The rally at Sharpton’s office was followed by a 20-block march down Malcolm X Boulevard and then across 125th Street, Harlem’s main business thoroughfare, where some bystanders yelled out “Kill the police!”

“They never accused Sean Bell of doing anything. Then why is he dead?” Sharpton asked, his voice roaring with anger. Authorities “have shown now that they will not hold police accountable. Well, guess what? If you won’t, we will!”

And this is supposed to accomplish…what?

God bless,
Laurel