Mood:
don't askNow Playing: Wheres the mood for : perturbed?
Topic: Crime and Punishment
RE: Sean Bell
http://www.justiceforsean.net/
First of all these police officers were undercover and not in uniform.
They were also using a unmarked po-lice car.
For years I have often said to people in conversation that the number one reason why applicants to NYPD are not isssued badges and guns and DO NOT PASS Basic Traning is because they shoot deaf people during mock-up exercises in which a potentially harmless person is shot while reaching for his back pocket for his wallet to retrieve a card to show he is deaf.
It is not a story I will rely on anymore with any degree of reserved pride. Perhaps I can say : it used to be that.... .
The reason this is important has little to with race.
No. 1 thing is the suspect was un-armed in the first place. The testimony of : " I thought I heard him say he or somebody said they might have a gun" should not have even be allowed as testimonial evidence if its not enough reason to open fire. You cant just open fire and shoot someone because you are scared. In order to feel that threat of danger you have to be perceive a real threat, not rely on your imagination to embellish a scenario.
As for the officer who fired so many shots and re-loaded a second time without striking the target said
it seemed "like a second or two" before he was out of bullets - and staring into the car at Joseph Guzman, a friend of the groom. "I looked at my gun. I didn't know it had any bullets or something was wrong,"
..is this the same individual who "thought" he heard somebody say something about a gun?
If I were a lawyer for the prosecutor I would be peppering him with the question: WHERE WAS THE THREAT? IN your mind and get him to break down on the stand to admit the threat was in his head and not in reality.
- -- -
I can understand if cops on the beat working undercover might get a little confused with the players here. We are talking about some young people enjoying a night out on the town in advance of a grooms more formal wedding celebrations. Things might get a little dicey in a room where all undercover police have jaundiced eyes towards revelers.
They were supposedly simeultaneously on the look out for and searching for a man with a baseball cap on it marked BOSTON RED SOX whom the believed was loaded with a gun.
Did they ever find this guy? Was Mr Bell wearing such a cap?
In my opinion, the Court failed the people the system was designed to protect, just as the police failed in their duty to protect the public and now they are walking away from the scene of a crime scott-free.
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I had a genuine NYPD logo t-shirt before, will I wear it now?
Not on your life. This is the new image of the NYPD.
And just where the hell is-,.. William S. Bratton when you need him?
