From the NY Post. Sorry it's not a link, Juan. It'll have to do.
A REASONABLE FEAR
November 28, 2006 -- Once again, the rattle of NYPD gunfire heralds a tragedy. Once again, rabble-rousing advantage-seekers ply their corrosive trade.
Five cops fired 50 rounds outside a sleazy Queens strip-joint early Saturday morning, killing Sean Bell - a 23-year-old black man who was to be married that day - and injuring two other African-Americans, Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield.
What happened?
Mayor Bloomberg cautions that an investigation is underway - and then, stunningly, indicts the cops.
"It sounds to me like excessive force was used," Bloomberg said yesterday.
Well, it sounds to us as if Mayor Mike needs to hold his horses.
Yes, 50 shots are a lot. Happily, the probe is in more judicious hands: Queens DA Richard Brown can be trusted to pull no punches.
And as the probe proceeds - and as was the case with the fatal shooting of Amadou Diallo in 1999 - it must be remembered that as a matter of law, cops have an explicit right to use deadly force if they are in reasonable fear for their lives.
This is true regardless of any department regulations on the use of force.
Preliminary reports suggest such a fear was indeed reasonable, given that Bell apparently drove his car into an undercover cop. And that officers on the scene thought the men might have had a gun.
Thus, the deadly shooting in this case, as in all others involving cops firing their weapons, must be judged in context:
* Start with the fact that the cops were probing a skeezy dive in Queens called Club Kalua. Their investigation was part of an NYPD operation called Club Enforcement Initiative, launched after the gruesome rape and murder of 18-year-old Jennifer Moore in July.
The Kalua certainly seems a choice target, following reports of drug and gun violations and prostitution at the club.
* All three men had arrest records (even if cops didn't know it at the time): Bell had been nabbed twice for drugs and once on a gun rap; Guzman, nine times, including for armed robbery, and Benefield for gun possession and robbery.
* An undercover cop reportedly heard Guzman say, "Yo, get my gun." Before firing, the officer demanded to see the men's hands - a clear sign he thought they might have a gun.
* As their car lurched forward, hitting him and a police minivan, the officer reportedly yelled, "He's got a gun."
Much of the attention, alas, has been focused on the fact that 50 shots were fired. Certainly, that seems a large number.
But there is reason to believe that in the confusion of the moment some officers believed that they had come under fire and - quite reasonably - retaliated.
There's that word again: reasonable.
None of this context, of course, matters to folks like Rev.-on-the-Spot Al Sharpton, or racial revolutionary City Councilman Charles Barron.
Yesterday Sharpton said, "Some in the city have to worry about the robbers. We [in the minority community] have to worry about both" cops and robbers.
Which is utter nonsense.
Events such as Saturday's tragedy are big news precisely because they're so rare. In any event, as Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said yesterday, police shootings per capita in New York City are lower than in most other large cities.
But Sharpton's almost pro forma protestations pale compared to Barron's vile race-mongering: "I'm not asking my people to do anything passive anymore," Barron snarled.
"Don't ask us to ask our people to be peaceful while they are being murdered. We're not the only ones that can bleed."
Bleed?
It was execrable rhetoric of that sort that made the sight of Bloomberg rubbing shoulders with Sharpton and Barron at City Hall so shocking.
You'd think the Bloomberg folks had already done enough to show good faith and outreach to minorities - what with all the speeches Kelly's made at black churches and his quick admission that another cop's shooting, which killed Timothy Stansbury in 2004, was unjustified.
Kelly, of course, can be counted on to do the right thing this time, too.
As can DA Brown.
And Bloomberg, we expect, is operating in good faith - even if he does have ants in his pants.
Not so Sharpton, Barron and the rest of their ilk. It would be unreasonable to expect otherwise.
Now, or ever.
