NY cops acquitted

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pitz96

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I just read that the NY cops who shot an unarmed man to death were acquitted of ALL charges. One officer fired 31 shots (reloading in the process), and several others also fired, but not as much. The dead man was with friends, and had just left his bachelor party at a bar, where they supposedly argued with undercover police at a bar. The whole story was all over the internet some months ago.

I know policing is a dangerous job, but is there ever accountability when an innocent person is killed in what can only be called a hail of gunfire?
 
I think some research on your part is required, like maybe a posting of the stories related to this. Have the cops recieved any disciplarny action from thier department. What caused the cops to draw thier weapons... so forth and so forth

If the cops were wrong so be it, but so is drive by internet bashing which this looks like. How about some meat for this sandwich.
 
I know policing is a dangerous job, but is there ever accountability when an innocent person is killed in what can only be called a hail of gunfire?
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Of course there is. The questions are A) was what they did actually illegal, and B) was that provable beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law? Or do you think the same standard of justice should not apply to police?

Also, what TwoXForr said.

The issue is that in general police are given a lot more latitude in the use of deadly force than you or I. Which, arguably, is not entirely unreasonable. I don't think this was a reasonable shooting, but I'm not sure it was illegal. You can go back to the (incredibly) old thread we had back when it happened, and see that I'm pretty far from supporting these officers. But wanting to see them disciplined or kicked off the force is different than wanting to see them in prison. The latter requires a much higher standard of evidence than the former.

I'm glad they were tried. Personally, I'd not be sad to have seen them convicted. But at the end of the day that's in the hands of the criminal justice system, not me. Even having them charged and tried is better than what happens in many cases, for what it's worth.
 
i remember reading the news when this happened, the grooms car was speeding and crashed into an undercover policecar, they thought they were under attack and.....overreacted why reload and empty clip again?
 
An undercover officer heard one of the men mention "getting a gun" inside the bar. As the men left, the officers tried to stop them. The men pulled away, striking an officer and then rammed a police car. One officer "thought the man had a gun" and began to fire 31 shots as he ran for cover. Another fired 11.

I understand that police have a dangerous job and any time that a suspect tries to flee, it is usually for a good reason.

In my opinion, if you don't want to get hurt, don't run from the police. That was mistake one and that is an easy mistake to avoid. Do not attempt to flee.

Were the police justified in firing over 40 shots? No. Do I believe that they thought that their fire was being returned? Possible. To me, the whole thing sounds like the officers panic and over reacted. That was mistake two. Should these guys have been charged with murder? I don't think so. Should they keep their jobs? I don't know. I think the 31 rounds fired guy should be taken off the street. Clearly that is excessive and I would have to question his ability to handle a difficult situation. Clearly not everyone is cut out to be an officer and this guy is one of them.
 
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According to Bell's family ;) , he was not a thug, nor did he live the thug life. But, he did hang with thugs. Hanging with thugs when they decide to act like thugs can earn you the same end that most thugs come to.

A thug friend [allegedly] said "Yo man gonna get ma gun" [or words similar] and walked to the car. "Sweet and innocent" Bell went with said thug along with the other two thug friends and got in the car.

Car starts to pull away; police try to stop car, car hits a police officer [allegedly] and hits a police van. One of the thugs makes a motion as if he was pulling a gun (see above reference to gun) so the officer shoots. Several other officers shoot.

Ahhh, the thug life.
 
I have no problem with firing after being rammed by a vehicle. I think the number of shots fired (and the location or some of the bullets found) indicates a breakdown in the response though.
 
In a city of seven million people circumstances will create a lose/lose situation now and again. This is one of them.
 
The current mindset, state of training, and 15+ capacity mags

Waaay back before the police carried "hi capacity" handguns, incidents like this still happened. The main difference was that a couple of officers would fire 12 rounds (rarely more, but it did happen), and in the extra time it took to reload revolvers, they might reassess the situation before firing again.

Mindset and training also play a part. Officers are human beings too, (no matter what some might think), and under stress will often shoot until there is either no clear threat, or their gun goes empty. And they will often shoot as fast as they possibly can.

Whether or not the officers actually broke the law with their actions depends on what an investigation decides, and what he officers "believed at the time" weighs heavily in the outcome of the investigation. The rules are different for them than they are for the rest of us, in detail, because of their being agents of the state. Consideration of things is weighted differently for them, but if the final outcome is that they knowingly did wrong, they face punishment, just as we would. These officers are going to live the rest of their lives knowing now that they killed when there was no actual need, but what they believed when they pulled the trigger is what is judged as to if their actions were criminal or not. And even if exonerated of criminal charges, they still may face civil charges. The devil is in the details, and the investigation is supposed to take these details into account.

It is a sad state of affairs, where we are today, when the police shoot "too easily", it shouldn't be that way, but that is the way it is. When they think they are in danger, they shoot. Wouldn't you?

Shooting "too much" is a different question, connected, but different. Excessive force, what is, and is not has apparently changed somewhat over the years, and not always for the better.
 
I can certainly understand firing if they had been rammed with a car and it looked like a cop might get run over, but in all the media accounts I have heard and read, the justification presented is "they could have had a gun".

I guess the mere possibility of a firearm being present is more shocking to your average journalist than somebody attempting to crush a cop with a huge wheeled object.

Extremely odd.
 
Yeah, they seem to be glossing over the part about hitting the cop on foot (AP keeps saying "brushing" the cop) and ramming the vehicle. By that point, everyone admits that they saw the cops badges. Of course, by that point, the cops had also already shot at the driver.

Here's the other part they omit from all the AP versions except the one carried by Foxnews.com.

In closing arguments, defense attorneys accused prosecutors of building their case on the unreliable testimony of Bell's friends. They noted that Guzman and Benefield both have criminal records and $50 million lawsuits against the city.

The pair were part of "a parade of convicted felons, crack dealers and men who were not strangers to weapons," said James Culleton, Oliver's attorney.
 
Isnora claimed that after he warned the men to halt, Bell pulled away in his car, bumped him and rammed an unmarked police van that converged on the scene. The detective also said Guzman made a sudden move as if he were reaching for a gun.
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I guess I was wrong about the shots occurring before the ramming the vehicle.
 
some details

Here is a snip from the first news article I found. too bad the Guardian had to label the link in such an inflammatory way, but it is a British newspaper:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/26/usa.usgunviolence

"...The events of that November night began when Bell and his friends got into an argument outside the club.

The party had no idea that the Club Kahlua was under police surveillance as part of an investigation into prostitution. Oliver, Isnora and Cooper had recently come on shift when the argument erupted. A number of witnesses testified that they heard talk of guns during the argument, and that Guzman had said: "Yo, go get my gun."

The detectives decided to follow Bell and his friends out to their car. They told the court they feared that talk of guns during the argument could lead to a shooting. According to Isnora, he then identified himself as a police detective, clipping his badge on his collar and shouting out: "Police".

But Guzman and Benefield said they heard no warning and had no idea that Isnora was with the police when he walked up to their car with his gun drawn. They say the gunfire erupted without any warning.

The police, for their part, claimed that Guzman may have helped to provoke the shooting by urging Bell to drive away. The police claim that they opened fire only after Bell nudged Isnora with his car, pushing him into an unmarked police van.

Oliver then fired at Bell's car 31 times. Isnora fired 11 shots and Cooper four."

***It seems that since the police were undercover, they weren't in uniform. Put yourself in the place of the people who got shot: an argument happens with some guys outside a bar. You decide to just get away. One of your group says they have a gun possibly to deter the presumed other thugs. I can understand not realizing the guys were cops, and can also believe they didn't hear or believe it when one office supposedly ID'd himself as police. So they tried to drive away, clipped one of the cops, then all hell broke loose.
 
When my step-daughter was sixteen and in high school, she was hanging with a shady crowd. We didn't know just HOW shady they were until she didn't come home from school one Friday afternoon. We called the police and did the preliminary interview. During the process we divulged what we knew about the boyfriend. The police officer stopped writing, looked up at us, and in the most sincere tone said, "You have to get your daughter away from that guy. He is nothing but trouble." and he wasn't just saying the kid skipped seventh period. He meant TROUBLE. After hearing this and getting the step-daughter back home, we confronted her with our new found information. She insisted that he didn't do anything bad. We pushed it further and she reluctantly admitted that he DID get into trouble, but she knew that "he wouldn't do anything while I was around". I told her in no uncertain terms that she had absolutely zero control over what the young man would do, yet would be held accountable by her mother and I. Even worse, I told her it was unlikely the authorities would consider her an innocent bystander when she knew his reputation.

We didn't have to worry about it too much longer. He finally pushed his luck too far and went to a nice fenced in facility where they provide you with orange suites and a roommate. When we brought this up she insisted that he really didn't do anything that bad. Thank heaven she has straightened out!

Bad people do bad things. You just don't want to be the person they are doing it to, or with them when they do it.

Fly
 
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