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Demonstrators Rally In The Bronx Against Police Shootings

The protests continued Wednesday, nearly a week after the acquittal of three police detectives in the Sean Bell shooting.

Demonstrators held a rally in the Mount Eden section of the Bronx Wednesday afternoon, calling the verdict a miscarriage of justice.

They chanted the names of a number of other men shot and killed by the NYPD in the past, including Anthony Baez and Timothy Stansbury.

Many say they still cannot understand why Bell was killed.

“Fifty shots is just too much. For real, man. I believe the officers only got a vacation. That’s all they got was a vacation,” said one demonstrator. “Now they’re back on the job.”

“What you see that happened to Sean Bell and his friends, that could be your brother, your cousin, you know, somebody in your family and you know that no one is exempt,” said another. “Somebody that you know could be involved in the next police brutality case.”

“It could be any one of us, you know what I mean, and we’re all here just to show support,” added another. “That could be any one of us.”

More protests are planned including a solidarity march in the Soundview section of the Bronx on Saturday in front of the home of Amadou Diallo. He will shot to death by police in 1999. The officers in that case were also acquitted.

SOURCE: NY1.com Read more..

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Yes, Pursue Special Prosecutor. But Why Are Cops’ Victims Almost Always Black?

The script is all too familiar: An unarmed black man who committed no crime is approached by police and ends up shot dead. Sean Bell is just the latest in a string of victims whose final moments fit that pattern. What comes next is also pretty predictable: The officers who fired the fatal shots are indicted and stand trial and are found not guilty.

Acquittals Friday for the officers who fired on Bell and two others outside a Queens strip club in 2006 have sparked calls for a special prosecutor to handle cases in which cops kill unarmed people. It’s a reform worth pursuing. No bureaucratic shuffle can answer the key question in these tragedies, but it would engender more confidence that future cases will be investigated and prosecuted impartially.

When defendants are cops, the cozy working relationship that routinely exists between the police and a district attorney makes at least the appearance of a conflict of interest inescapable.

Make no mistake, it will always be difficult to convict officers who shoot while on duty. Life-and-death decisions made in a heartbeat should not be second-guessed cavalierly. And criminal intent is all but impossible to establish. Still, shifting the cases to a special prosecutor would help to defuse the explosive belief of many that when cops kill blacks, indictments and trials are shams.

But beyond this after-the-fact reform is the real question, and it’s one that urgently needs answering: Why, when police kill, are the victims so often black men? Such as Amadou Diallo, shot clutching his dinner and wallet outside his Bronx apartment. Or teenager Timothy Stansbury, shot on the roof of his Brooklyn building. Or Ousmane Zongo, killed when he happened upon a cop in a ministorage building. Or Patrick Dorismond, shot after voicing his ire at being approached by an undercover cop looking to buy drugs. Or bridegroom Sean Bell.

SOURCE: NewsDay.com Read more..

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