The steroid addicted cops in NYC can now kill anyone they want
The ones who assassinaated innocent Sean Bell were just acquitted
Another lynching in America.
Just tie the nooses back to the trees.
It is open season on blacks in America once again
(of course, after Katrina, we already know that).
JUSTICE DENIED AGAIN
What was that great Bruce Springsteen song
41 shots (a prior lynching in NYC)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kCbXkYbI6o
and that great Ice-T song? Damn right!
41 shots (a prior lynching in NYC)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kCbXkYbI6o
and that great Ice-T song? Damn right!
too bad a jury was not allowed
too bad I wasn't part of that jury
too bad I wasn't part of that jury
I hope this is taken to Federal government
and I hope a civil suit is filed for billions of dollars
Bankrupt them.
No retreat. No surrender.
It was a lynching.
and I hope a civil suit is filed for billions of dollars
Bankrupt them.
No retreat. No surrender.
It was a lynching.
QUOTE(graham4anything @ Apr 25 2008, 08:22 AM) 
I hope this is taken to Federal government
and I hope a civil suit is filed for billions of dollars
Bankrupt them.
No retreat. No surrender.
It was a lynching.
and I hope a civil suit is filed for billions of dollars
Bankrupt them.
No retreat. No surrender.
It was a lynching.
But then they'd need to bring Guiliani back to get them out of bankruptcy Graham.
It is worse now for fair minded people in America than after the Civil War
What has to be watched for is the rightwing militia NY Cops putting someone on the other side to throw a rock
Then the cops do what they want to do
Bush and Bust heads
Thank God cops only make $26,000 a year. They don't deserve one penny more.
51 shots is murder.
Steroids and guns kill.
They don't protect the public. They KILL the public. In NYC.
Maybe you should move to a quieter, calmer place, Graham.
QUOTE(graham4anything @ Apr 25 2008, 08:19 AM)
What was that great Bruce Springsteen song
41 shots (a prior lynching in NYC)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kCbXkYbI6o
and that great Ice-T song? Damn right!
41 shots (a prior lynching in NYC)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kCbXkYbI6o
and that great Ice-T song? Damn right!
Just how do you lynch someone with bullets?
I agree that it is dangerous in the Jim Crow North!!
NYT (1 hr. ago)
3 Detectives Acquitted in Bell Shooting
pool photo by Ellis Kaplan
From left, Detectives Gescard F. Isnora, Michael Oliver and Marc Cooper have been tried on charges related to the death of Sean Bell.
By MICHAEL WILSON
Three detectives were found not guilty Friday morning on all charges in the shooting death of Sean Bell, who died in a hail of 50 police bullets outside a club in Jamaica, Queens.
Justice Arthur J. Cooperman, who delivered the verdict, said many of the prosecution’s witnesses, including Mr. Bell’s friends and the two wounded victims, were simply not believable. “The testimony of those witnesses just didn’t make sense,” he said.
His verdict prompted several supporters of Mr. Bell to storm out of the courtroom, and screams could be heard in the hallway moments later. The three detectives were escorted out of a side doorway. Outside, a crowd gathered behind police barricades, occasionally shouting, amid a veritable sea of police officers.
The verdict comes 17 months to the day since the Nov. 25, 2006, shooting of Mr. Bell, 23, and his friends, Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield, outside the Club Kalua in Jamaica, Queens, hours before Mr. Bell was to be married.
It was delivered in a packed courtroom and was heard by, among others, the slain man’s parents and his fiancée. The seven-week trial, which ended April 14, was heard by Justice Cooperman in State Supreme Court in Queens after the defendants — Detectives Gescard F. Isnora, Michael Oliver and Marc Cooper — waived their right to a jury, a strategy some lawyers called risky at the time. But it clearly paid off with Friday’s verdict.
Before rendering his verdict, Justice Cooperman ran through a narrative of the evening, and concluded “the police response with respect to each defendant was not found to be criminal.”
“The people have not proved beyond a reasonable doubt” that each defendant was justified in shooting, he said, before quickly saying the men were not guilty of all of the eight counts, five felonies and three misdemeanors, against them.
Mr. Bell’s family sat silently as Justice Cooperman spoke from the bench. Behind them, a woman was heard to ask, “Did he just say, ‘Not guilty?’ ”
Roughly 30 court officers stood by, around the courtroom and in the aisles. Detectives Isnora and Oliver had faced the most charges: first- and second-degree manslaughter, with a possible sentence of 25 years in prison; felony assault, first and second degree; and a misdemeanor, reckless endangerment, with a possible one-year sentence. Detective Oliver also faces a second count of first-degree assault. Detective Cooper was charged only with two counts of reckless endangerment.
During the 26 days of testimony, the prosecution sought to show, with an array of 50 witnesses, that the shooting was the act of a frightened, even enraged group of disorganized police officers who began their shift that night hoping to arrest a prostitute or two and, in suspecting Mr. Bell and his friends of possessing a gun, quickly got in over their heads.
“We ask police to risk their lives to protect ours,” said an assistant district attorney, Charles A. Testagrossa, in his closing arguments. “Not to risk our lives to protect their own.”
The defense, through weeks of often heated cross-examinations, their own witnesses and the words of the detectives themselves, portrayed the shooting as the tragic end to a nonetheless justified confrontation, with Detective Isnora having what it called solid reasons to believe he was the only thing standing between Mr. Bell’s car and a drive-by shooting around the corner.
Several witnesses testified that they heard talk of guns in an argument between Mr. Bell and a stranger, Fabio Coicou, outside Kalua, an argument, the defense claimed, that was fueled by bravado and Mr. Bell’s intoxicated state. Defense lawyers pointed their fingers at Mr. Guzman, who, they said, in shouting for Mr. Bell to drive away when Detective Isnora approached, may have instigated his death.
Detective Isnora told grand jurors last year that he clipped his badge to his collar and drew his gun, shouting, “Police! Don’t move!” as he approached Mr. Bell’s Nissan Altima.
Other witnesses, mostly friends of Mr. Bell, said they never heard shouts of “Police!” Mr. Guzman and Mr. Benefield testified that they had no idea that Detective Guzman was a police officer when he walked up with his gun drawn.
---------------------------------------------------------
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2...he_gang_th.html
In the Sean Bell case, it was the gang that couldn't prosecute straight
Updated Friday, April 25th 2008, 8:17 AM
It's one for the books.
"I never saw a case prosecuted like this," Marvyn Kornberg, the noted defense lawyer, said several times during the Sean Bell trial. "It's a throw-everything-at-the-wall approach."
Stephen Murphy, who won the only acquittal in the sensational Howard Beach trial in the very same Queens courtroom 21 years ago, is still scratching his head.
"I've thought all along that these cops were going to be acquitted because the prosecution made major blunders in the case," he said.
"To start with, the prosecution should never have read the grand jury testimony of the three cops into the record because it basically precluded the defendants from taking the stand."
Murphy says once the cops' versions of the shooting were on the record in the trial, there was no way the defense was going to expose them to cross-examination.
"If the prosecution hadn't done that, the defense would have seriously had to consider making their clients take the stand," Murphy said.
I couldn't find a defense lawyer who could explain why the prosecution never prepared their star witnesses for crossexamination concerning their conflicting statements to police, prosecutors and the grand jury.
"Most of the star witnesses contradicted themselves in major, material ways throughout the trial," Murphy said. "Sometimes their statements were tape-recorded. Or written in the DA's own notes.
"The prosecution also put on police witnesses who developed sudden amnesia. Most of the major prosecution witnesses, the police and friends of Sean Bell helped the defense more than the prosecution. It's incredible that an NYPD lieutenant testified that after the shooting he never bothered to ask his men what happened."
Another lawyer, who preferred to remain nameless, who used to work for the Queens district attorney's office, said politics is the only reason the case was brought to trial.
He said there was an angry split in the Queens DA's office over bringing an indictment. One faction led by Jack Ryan, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown's top aide, argued that there wasn't enough evidence. The other faction said prosecutors owed it to Sean Bell's loved ones, the shooting victims and "the community."
"Traditionally, the Queens DA's office assembled their best ADAs and made them build a great defense of the suspect," the lawyer said. "If the defense was stronger than the prosecution's case, you didn't go into the grand jury. Judging by his own admission during summation that he could not vouch for some of his own witnesses, it's difficult to believe that [lead prosecutor Charles] Testagrossa could have analyzed this case and come away convinced the prosecution had a more compelling case than the defense."
This lawyer said that leaves one answer: "Queens DA Brown, bowing to public pressure from the African-American community, especially after Mayor Bloomberg said this shooting seemed 'excessive,' told Testagrossa to bring an indictment for political reasons. Remember, Brown and Bloomberg are friends and Brown depends on City Hall for funding."
When asked about his prosecution strategy, Testagrossa told one Daily News reporter, "It is what it is."
That comment - and the prosecution's tactics during the trial, brought smiles to the faces of many local lawyers.
"Even if Cooperman finds the cops guilty, I just wish the Queens DA would prosecute all its cases like this one," Murphy said. "In front of a jury, it would be a defense lawyer's dream."`
-------------------------
And, that's the rest of the story.
3 Detectives Acquitted in Bell Shooting
pool photo by Ellis Kaplan
From left, Detectives Gescard F. Isnora, Michael Oliver and Marc Cooper have been tried on charges related to the death of Sean Bell.
By MICHAEL WILSON
Three detectives were found not guilty Friday morning on all charges in the shooting death of Sean Bell, who died in a hail of 50 police bullets outside a club in Jamaica, Queens.
Justice Arthur J. Cooperman, who delivered the verdict, said many of the prosecution’s witnesses, including Mr. Bell’s friends and the two wounded victims, were simply not believable. “The testimony of those witnesses just didn’t make sense,” he said.
His verdict prompted several supporters of Mr. Bell to storm out of the courtroom, and screams could be heard in the hallway moments later. The three detectives were escorted out of a side doorway. Outside, a crowd gathered behind police barricades, occasionally shouting, amid a veritable sea of police officers.
The verdict comes 17 months to the day since the Nov. 25, 2006, shooting of Mr. Bell, 23, and his friends, Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield, outside the Club Kalua in Jamaica, Queens, hours before Mr. Bell was to be married.
It was delivered in a packed courtroom and was heard by, among others, the slain man’s parents and his fiancée. The seven-week trial, which ended April 14, was heard by Justice Cooperman in State Supreme Court in Queens after the defendants — Detectives Gescard F. Isnora, Michael Oliver and Marc Cooper — waived their right to a jury, a strategy some lawyers called risky at the time. But it clearly paid off with Friday’s verdict.
Before rendering his verdict, Justice Cooperman ran through a narrative of the evening, and concluded “the police response with respect to each defendant was not found to be criminal.”
“The people have not proved beyond a reasonable doubt” that each defendant was justified in shooting, he said, before quickly saying the men were not guilty of all of the eight counts, five felonies and three misdemeanors, against them.
Mr. Bell’s family sat silently as Justice Cooperman spoke from the bench. Behind them, a woman was heard to ask, “Did he just say, ‘Not guilty?’ ”
Roughly 30 court officers stood by, around the courtroom and in the aisles. Detectives Isnora and Oliver had faced the most charges: first- and second-degree manslaughter, with a possible sentence of 25 years in prison; felony assault, first and second degree; and a misdemeanor, reckless endangerment, with a possible one-year sentence. Detective Oliver also faces a second count of first-degree assault. Detective Cooper was charged only with two counts of reckless endangerment.
During the 26 days of testimony, the prosecution sought to show, with an array of 50 witnesses, that the shooting was the act of a frightened, even enraged group of disorganized police officers who began their shift that night hoping to arrest a prostitute or two and, in suspecting Mr. Bell and his friends of possessing a gun, quickly got in over their heads.
“We ask police to risk their lives to protect ours,” said an assistant district attorney, Charles A. Testagrossa, in his closing arguments. “Not to risk our lives to protect their own.”
The defense, through weeks of often heated cross-examinations, their own witnesses and the words of the detectives themselves, portrayed the shooting as the tragic end to a nonetheless justified confrontation, with Detective Isnora having what it called solid reasons to believe he was the only thing standing between Mr. Bell’s car and a drive-by shooting around the corner.
Several witnesses testified that they heard talk of guns in an argument between Mr. Bell and a stranger, Fabio Coicou, outside Kalua, an argument, the defense claimed, that was fueled by bravado and Mr. Bell’s intoxicated state. Defense lawyers pointed their fingers at Mr. Guzman, who, they said, in shouting for Mr. Bell to drive away when Detective Isnora approached, may have instigated his death.
Detective Isnora told grand jurors last year that he clipped his badge to his collar and drew his gun, shouting, “Police! Don’t move!” as he approached Mr. Bell’s Nissan Altima.
Other witnesses, mostly friends of Mr. Bell, said they never heard shouts of “Police!” Mr. Guzman and Mr. Benefield testified that they had no idea that Detective Guzman was a police officer when he walked up with his gun drawn.
---------------------------------------------------------
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2...he_gang_th.html
In the Sean Bell case, it was the gang that couldn't prosecute straight
Updated Friday, April 25th 2008, 8:17 AM
It's one for the books.
"I never saw a case prosecuted like this," Marvyn Kornberg, the noted defense lawyer, said several times during the Sean Bell trial. "It's a throw-everything-at-the-wall approach."
Stephen Murphy, who won the only acquittal in the sensational Howard Beach trial in the very same Queens courtroom 21 years ago, is still scratching his head.
"I've thought all along that these cops were going to be acquitted because the prosecution made major blunders in the case," he said.
"To start with, the prosecution should never have read the grand jury testimony of the three cops into the record because it basically precluded the defendants from taking the stand."
Murphy says once the cops' versions of the shooting were on the record in the trial, there was no way the defense was going to expose them to cross-examination.
"If the prosecution hadn't done that, the defense would have seriously had to consider making their clients take the stand," Murphy said.
I couldn't find a defense lawyer who could explain why the prosecution never prepared their star witnesses for crossexamination concerning their conflicting statements to police, prosecutors and the grand jury.
"Most of the star witnesses contradicted themselves in major, material ways throughout the trial," Murphy said. "Sometimes their statements were tape-recorded. Or written in the DA's own notes.
"The prosecution also put on police witnesses who developed sudden amnesia. Most of the major prosecution witnesses, the police and friends of Sean Bell helped the defense more than the prosecution. It's incredible that an NYPD lieutenant testified that after the shooting he never bothered to ask his men what happened."
Another lawyer, who preferred to remain nameless, who used to work for the Queens district attorney's office, said politics is the only reason the case was brought to trial.
He said there was an angry split in the Queens DA's office over bringing an indictment. One faction led by Jack Ryan, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown's top aide, argued that there wasn't enough evidence. The other faction said prosecutors owed it to Sean Bell's loved ones, the shooting victims and "the community."
"Traditionally, the Queens DA's office assembled their best ADAs and made them build a great defense of the suspect," the lawyer said. "If the defense was stronger than the prosecution's case, you didn't go into the grand jury. Judging by his own admission during summation that he could not vouch for some of his own witnesses, it's difficult to believe that [lead prosecutor Charles] Testagrossa could have analyzed this case and come away convinced the prosecution had a more compelling case than the defense."
This lawyer said that leaves one answer: "Queens DA Brown, bowing to public pressure from the African-American community, especially after Mayor Bloomberg said this shooting seemed 'excessive,' told Testagrossa to bring an indictment for political reasons. Remember, Brown and Bloomberg are friends and Brown depends on City Hall for funding."
When asked about his prosecution strategy, Testagrossa told one Daily News reporter, "It is what it is."
That comment - and the prosecution's tactics during the trial, brought smiles to the faces of many local lawyers.
"Even if Cooperman finds the cops guilty, I just wish the Queens DA would prosecute all its cases like this one," Murphy said. "In front of a jury, it would be a defense lawyer's dream."`
-------------------------
And, that's the rest of the story.
I do not know all the facts in this case. But 12 or more people thought this a just verdict. Without sitting through the trial like they did I cannot judge them.
QUOTE(david sobien @ Apr 25 2008, 08:59 AM)
I do not know all the facts in this case. But 12 or more people thought this a just verdict. Without sitting through the trial like they did I cannot judge them.
There was no jury, as I understand.
There's an old saying, if sympathy favors you get a jury trial, if the facts and the law favor you get a bench trial. The rundowns I've seen indicate both poor prosecution and a purely politically motivated prosecution.
QUOTE(bigtom @ Apr 25 2008, 06:53 AM)
Just how do you lynch someone with bullets?
I agree that it is dangerous in the Jim Crow North!!
I agree that it is dangerous in the Jim Crow North!!
Spin them into a rope. Do we have to explain EVERYTHING to you? Next we'll have to explain how a legal and constitutional trial is an affront to justice if the defendants are assumed to have rights and found not guilty!
QUOTE(david sobien @ Apr 25 2008, 09:59 AM)
I do not know all the facts in this case. But 12 or more people thought this a just verdict. Without sitting through the trial like they did I cannot judge them.
Check your facts David before you start making assumptions.
The judge ruled from the bench. No jury.
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