Militant/Dan Fein

Hundreds join December 9 march sponsored by NAACP in Jamaica, Queens, to protest November 26 shooting in which cops killed Sean Bell and wounded two others.

On December 9, more than 300 people marched from the 103rd police precinct in Jamaica, Queens, to the site of the killing, chanting, “Remember Sean Bell!" Contingents of students from St. John’s University, State University of New York at Stonybrook, and York College joined the action called by the NAACP, as did members of the Bell family. Passersby joined the march as it wound down Jamaica Avenue. Many others stopped to cheer the demonstrators.

Sean Bell was gunned down in the early morning hours of November 26, when five undercover police officers opened fire on him, Joseph Guzman, 31, and Trent Benefield, 23, as the three sat in Bell's car. Guzman and Benefield received multiple gunshot wounds and were hospitalized. The three African Americans, who were unarmed, were leaving a club in Jamaica where they had attended Bell's bachelor party on the eve of his wedding.

The police claimed after the fact that a fourth man was possibly armed and present at the scene, and that Bell had rammed his car into a detective and then into an unmarked police van. Witnesses on the scene contradicted the cops' account. A preliminary police report, sections of which were made public this week, makes no mention of a fourth man and says that Bell began driving only after a cop began shooting into his car.

The Daily News reported today that an unnamed "law enforcement source" who reviewed radio transmissions the night of the attack said police communications right after the shooting made no mention of a fourth man. Nor did the cops organize any search that night for a supposedly armed individual fleeing the scene. In the days that followed, however, the police carried out a dragnet of working-class communities in the Bronx and Queens, interrogating and arresting people on unrelated charges.

According to the police report, after the gunfire subsided, Lieutenant Gary Napoli approached Bell's car and ordered the men inside to show their hands. Guzman put his hands out the car window and was cuffed. Four cops surrounded Benefield, who had gotten out of the car and was lying on the ground with multiple gunshot wounds. The fifth cop pointed his gun at Bell's car. The cops proceeded to handcuff Benefield and Bell, who was mortally wounded, if not already dead. Benefield and Guzman were kept handcuffed in the hospital until protests forced the cops to unshackle them. Cops surrounded Bell in his hospital bed until he was pronounced dead at 4:56 a.m.

The official investigation is moving at a snail's pace. Queens district attorney Richard Brown wrote in a December 11 letter published in the New York Times that "desire for quick answers…cannot be allowed to influence the pace of our investigation…. We will follow the evidence wherever it leads us, and we will reach no conclusions until all of the facts are in."

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who initially called the shooting "excessive" in an effort to quell public anger, has tried to dissuade people from participating in more protests. "It probably has nothing to do with this particular case, but we have plenty of problems with crime and with people who don't share in the great American dream," he said. Bloomberg was making a veiled reference to unsubstantiated police reports that Bell, Benefield, and Guzman had been involved in selling drugs.

Other capitalist politicians are trying to channel the protests into reliance on the courts. "We will walk the streets and say that we can't buy justice on the streets, but we can get justice in the courts," said Bronx city councilman Larry Seabrook.

But the protests continue. “We’re tired of being victimized,” said Imam Abdul Baqi at the December 9 action. “Our youth are sent upstate, discriminated against, criminalized. This is institutionalized racism.”

Speakers at the rally included leaders of the NAACP and its youth organization, New York City councilmen John Liu and Leroy Comrie, and a representative from the cop group 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care. In their remarks, most speakers called for legislative and police policy change. Many also demanded that police chief Raymond Kelly step down.

“There is nothing to investigate,” said protester Gregory Brown. “We can determine how many times the police were wrong and that’s it. There should be no investigation.”

Meanwhile, New York cops shot three men December 6-8. When queried about these shootings, Kelly replied, "Sometimes they come in spurts. That's just the way it is."

The most recent victim, Wayne Bolton, 24, was shot when three cops decided he "fit the description" of a suspect in a robbery case. Currently recovering at Elmhurst Hospital Center in Queens, Bolton is facing weapons and drug possession charges.

Another march is set for Manhattan's Fifth Avenue December 16.

Willie Cotton contributed to this article.
 
 
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