Police should be held accountable for their actions. They cannot be above the law, for enforcing laws that you don’t abide by yourself is hypocritical. Sean Bell was gunned down last year by three police officers who took oaths to serve and protect. Instead, they took human life. Mr. Bell was unarmed, and so were his friends in his car. The three officers opened fire on the car killing Bell and injuring his two friends. One officer emptied his clip, loaded a new clip, and emptied that one as well.
NEW YORK (AP) — Three detectives were acquitted of all charges 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.
The American justice system is such that those who have enough money and/or popularity are less punishable. These three officers had a government organization and racism on their side. Three young black men at a seedy stripper club in Queens don’t seem to posses enough credibility to be considered equal in the eyes of the law. The police are always right. When they fired over 40 shots into an African emigrant pulling out his wallet to show police his I.D. in 1999, their actions were considered justifiable. Today, police brutatlity was deemed justified once more. The reason? The victims couldn’t defend themselves properly. Not in a court of law. Michael Oliver, Gescard Isnora, and Marc Cooper got away with murder today. How many people are the NYPD allowed to kill before justice is served? How much power can they wield? How many lives and families can they ruin? If you believe in hell, then we know where these people go.
With tires screeching, glass breaking and bullets flying, the officers claimed that they believed they were the ones under fire. Oliver responded by emptying his semiautomatic pistol, reloading, and emptying it again, as the supervisor sought cover.
The truth emerged when the smoke cleared: There was no weapon inside Bell’s blood-splattered car.
At least they lost their jobs and their acceptance in their community… I hope they don’t get to keep their pension.
Perhaps their conscious will catch up with them one day.
whereIstand Tags
“Who made people with this in their brain? God.” where is your evidence
First of all, the officers did not lose their jobs. Why should they? Because they were accused of a crime? Second of all, it is a credit to the NYPD that they have 25000 officers with guns working the streets and incidents like this happen very rarely.
I do not believe this was a murder, nor do I believe this was racism. The cops were trying to take guns off the street, and when they tried to stop Sean Bell and his friends, he rammed them with his car. What was Sean Bell’s blood alcohol level when he was shot? Funny, we never heard that. If he and all the people in the car had blood alcohol levels over .10, would it make you look at this story differently?
Crime in this city has not been this low in 30 – 40 years, and it goes back to Mayor Guiliani prosecuting the quality of life crimes. Murders are down to hundreds per year, not the thousands of the seventies. This was a tragic accident, but I think the NYPD does an admirable job.
I tend to agree with you BooMac. I am thrilled that crime is being soaked up by the NYPD. But at the same time, the NYPD tend to act in a very unprofessional manner. They can be very rude, very insensitive and very violent. I have personally witnessed them make false arrests and use excessive violence. If we’re going to have a strong police force it needs to be manned by higher quality people.
Shooting and KILLING un-armed people is unacceptable. One dead is one too many. I don’t care how drunk Bell was, or how much of a thug him and his friends are/were, you don’t open fire until you see a gun. Further more, you don’t shoot EVERYBODY in the car if only one person may or may not have a gun. Is everyone simply guilty by association? The cops screwed up, and their accident cost someone their life. Imagine if it was a drunk white girl, who rammed another police vehicle? Would they have shot her before they saw a gun?
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I never wanted to be a cop – too tough a job. Lots of split second decisions, I am sure it feels like you against the world sometimes. I am sure the police would agree with you that the police made some mistakes that night, no question. And it probably would have been a different outcome if we changed any of the factors in the situation.