**** The official SEAN BELL TRIAL thread****

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Trial begun on the 25TH

NEW YORK — The Police Department undercover operation that culminated with the 50-shot barrage that killed an unarmed bridegroom was "haphazard at best," a prosecutor said Monday as three officers went on trial.

The hail of gunshots outside a strip club killed Sean Bell, who had been at a bachelor party on the night before his wedding, and wounded two of his friends. The shooting has sparked protests and debate over excessive force and police conduct in New York City.

Assistant District Attorney Charles Testagrossa said in his opening statement that one of the three undercover officers failed to display his badge and wait for backup before confronting the three men, and gave contradictory orders to Bell and his friends.

Testagrossa was referring to Detective Gescard Isnora, who fired 11 of the shots during the Nov. 25, 2006, incident.

The detectives waived their right to a jury trial after an appeals court turned down a defense bid to move the case out of New York City. State Supreme Court Judge Arthur Cooperman is hearing the case by himself.

Defense attorney James Culleton said in his opening: "While clearly this was a tragedy, no crime was committed."

Isnora and Detective Michael Oliver have pleaded not guilty to manslaughter; Detective Mark Cooper has pleaded not guilty to reckless endangerment. Oliver fired 31 shots, including the one that killed Bell, and Cooper fired four times.

Bell's fiance, Nicole Paultre-Bell, joined shooting victim Joseph Guzman and activist minister Al Sharpton in stopping to pray outside the courthouse.

Paultre-Bell was expected to be the first witness at the trial, and she has said she plans to be in court every day.

"I feel like I need to know. I need to know why this happened," said Paultre-Bell, who had her maiden name legally changed after her fiance's death. "I wake up one day and my world is turned upside down. I have to know why this happened; my family deserves to know."

Bell, 23, was killed Nov. 25, 2006, hours before he was to marry the mother of his two children. He and his friends were confronted by undercover officers investigating reports of drugs and prostitution.

Police union officials and defense lawyers have said the detectives believed Bell and his friends were going to get a gun, though no weapon was found. The officers opened fire after the car the three men were in lurched forward, bumped Isnora and slammed into an unmarked police minivan, authorities said.

Oliver and Isnora face up to 25 years in prison if convicted; Cooper faces up to a year on the lesser endangerment count.

The trial isn't expected to cause the kind of widespread outrage that occurred after the 1999 killing of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed African immigrant hit by 19 of the 41 shots fired by police. Many New Yorkers, especially blacks, felt then-Mayor Rudy Giulani wasn't compassionate enough about the Diallo case, and said the shooting spotlighted racist police practices. Thousands marched in protest after the white officers were acquitted.

In contrast, current Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in the days after Bell's death that he felt the shooting was "excessive." He was praised by residents but criticized by law enforcement for speaking out before the facts were in.

"The thing that's missing in this case is that level of vitriol for City Hall," said Eugene O'Donnell, a professor of police studies at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. "The mayor and the police commissioner have credibility in the city, specifically in the black community."

Plus, while Bell and his friends were black, the officers involved are Hispanic, black and white.

"The police department is way more diverse now," O'Donnell said. "The old story of a bunch of white cops in an all-white department completely insensitive to the city is not true today."
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
 
Before the bullets, how much drinking with the guys? Sean Bell trial continues

By NICOLE BODE and CORKY SIEMASZKO
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Tuesday, February 26th 2008, 6:17 PM

Sean Bell ordered at least one round of Long Island iced teas at his bachelor bash shortly before he was killed in a barrage of 50 police bullets, a witness testified today.

Harold "Bones" James told the judge presiding over the trial of three cops charged with shooting Bell that the 23-year-old groom and his friends were living it up at a table in the back of a seedy Queens strip joint.

"God bless, Sean ordered the first round for the guys," said James, 37, whose rap sheet includes arrests for dealing crack near a schoolyard.

James told Queens Supreme Court Justice Arthur Cooperman he bought the next round almost immediately.

"I said, 'When he finishes his drink, you bring over another drink for him," James recalled telling the bartender, though he said he never actually saw Bell drink that night.

James' testimony is significant because defense lawyers contend Bell was hammered when he was confronted by undercover cops outside the club - and that cops fired in self-defense when he attacked them.

The accused detectives - Michael Oliver, Gescard Isnora and Marc Cooper - were working as part of a unit investigating prostitution at the Kalua Cabaret on 94th Ave. in Jamaica when Bell was killed on his wedding day.

Bell's dad, William, testified he was at the club before the fatal shooting and remembered seeing Cooper there. He said he hadn't planned on attending the bachelor bash, but his son "kept calling."

"He insisted," the 54-year-old Bell said in a calm voice. "So I finally decided to go."

William Bell said he arrived at the club around 12:30 a.m. and left at 3 a.m. because the music was too loud for conversation. He said he was told his son had been hurt about two hours later.

Day two of the city's biggest trial of the year opened with testimony from a club bartender who said she served Bell at least one drink.

Emilcen Angulo, a married mother of three, testified she served Bell "only one" Long Island ice tea, a potent blend of vodka, rum, gin, tequila, triple sec, sweet and sour mix and cola. She said she remembered because Bell gave her a $5 tip for a $10 drink.

"I don't know exactly how much he had, but he only asked me for one drink," she said.

Tina Oneale, 25, a former bartender at the club, testified she didn't see Bell at the club but remembered seeing Bell's buddy, Joseph Guzman.

"He asked me to get him a drink and get myself a drink," she said. "We flirted a little bit."

Bell was gunned down in the early-morning hours of Nov. 25, 2006. His friends, Guzman and Trent Benefield, were badly wounded but survived.

Oliver, who fired 31 rounds, including the fatal shot, and Isnora, who fired 11 shots, have pleaded not guilty to manslaughter.

Cooper, who fired four times, pleaded not guilty to reckless endangerment. Their case is being heard by a judge - not a jury.

The trial opened Monday with emotional testimony from Bell's fiancee, Nicole Paultre Bell, the 23-year-old mother of his two children.

Prosecutors portrayed Bell as the victim of trigger-happy cops while defense lawyers called him an out of control drunk who brought the tragedy on himself.
 
Kalua dancer says man she saw open fire on Bell car didn't identify himself

BY NICOLE BODE and CORKY SIEMASZKO
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Testifying through tears, a former pole dancer insisted Tuesday the gunman who suddenly opened fire on Sean Bell's car never identified himself as a cop.

"He was standing in front of the minivan with the door open," Marseilles Payne testified in Queens Supreme Court. "I saw the fire, like three times. Then I turned and I ran."

The gunman was NYPD Detective Michael Oliver, who is on trial with two other detectives for killing Bell in a 50-bullet barrage outside a seedy Queens nightclub.

Asked if she heard anyone yell "police" before the shooting, Payne answered, "No, I didn't hear nothing."

"Once I got into the bushes, I squatted down and put my head in my arms and I waited for the gunshots to stop. There was a pause. I thought the shooting was over."

Then, she said, "The gunshots started again."

Bell and his buddies were at the Kalua Cabaret on 94th Ave. in Jamaica for his bachelor party, unaware that Oliver and the other accused detectives - Gescard Isnora and Marc Cooper - were doing a sting operation there.

Payne, a 32-year-old single mom who works for the city's homeless outreach program, broke down as she described the shooting aftermath, causing Bell's fiancée, Nicole Paultre Bell, to start crying as well.

"They opened the doors, they were pulling them out of the car, pulling Sean out of the car and putting him on a stretcher," she said.

At the mention of Bell's name, his parents started weeping and staggered out of the courtroom.

Payne, who performed under the name Trini Wright and knew Bell from the neighborhood, told a similar story to a Daily News reporter shortly after the Nov. 25, 2006, killing.

Payne said she had planned to join Bell's party for breakfast when the shooting started. Two of Bell's pals, Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield, were badly wounded.

Payne admitted she has a record: She pleaded guilty to assault in 1998 after stabbing the father of her child who, she said, beat her.

Day two of the city's biggest trial of the year opened with testimony from bartenders and a club patron who said Bell's crew was drinking potent Long Island iced teas.

"God bless, Sean ordered the first round for the guys," said Harold (Bones) James, 37, whose rap sheet includes arrests for dealing crack near a schoolyard.

James told Queens Supreme Court Justice Arthur Cooperman he bought the next round almost immediately. "I said, 'When he finishes his drink, you bring over another drink for him,'" James recalled telling the bartender.

Defense lawyers contend the 23-year-old groom was hammered when he rammed his car into the cops' unmarked minivan - and the officers fired in self-defense. Authorities say Bell's blood-alcohol level was twice the legal limit.

Oliver, who fired 31 rounds, including the fatal shot, and Isnora, who fired 11 shots, have pleaded not guilty to manslaughter. Cooper, who fired four times, pleaded not guilty to reckless endangerment.

Their commanding officer, Lt. Gerard Napoli, is scheduled to testify tomorrow.

Bell's dad, William, testified he was at the club before the fatal shooting and remembered seeing Cooper there. He said he hadn't planned on going to the bachelor bash, but his son "kept calling."

"He insisted," the 54-year-old Bell said in a calm voice. "So I finally decided to go." He said he stayed for 2-1/2 hours and then left because the music was too loud.

After testimony ended, Neville Mitchell, the lawyer for Bell's parents, blasted the defense team for putting the local black community on trial by contending it's rife with criminals and drugs.

"That's despicable," he said.

Asked if the cops are suggesting they're trying to help the community, Mitchell replied: "When you're trying to help the community you don't ... shoot a car 50 times, you're not supposed to kill a man on his wedding night."
 
A Reluctant Partygoer, a Grieving Father, Now a Witness
By JOHN ELIGON
Published: February 27, 2008

William Bell did not want to go to the party. It felt awkward, going to his son’s bachelor bash at a strip club. It just was not his kind of place. “Be with your friends,” he told his son, Sean.

But Sean was not having it. He called his father — who was to be his best man — several times that day, pleading with him to make an appearance. Finally, Mr. Bell agreed. He would swing by with a friend. They ended up spending nearly three hours in the noisy Queens club.

“We sat and talked, shared a couple laughs together,” Mr. Bell said. He hugged his son goodbye around 3 a.m. on Nov. 25, 2006.

The next time he saw him was around 11 that night, in a morgue.

In the 15 months since Sean Bell died in a hail of 50 police bullets, William Bell has spoken out about the case, a calm presence behind a battery of microphones. He has described the lingering sense of loss shared with his wife, Valerie. But on Tuesday, he took on a new role: patron at a strip club, however briefly, now appearing as a witness in court.

Mr. Bell, 54, was testifying at the trial of three detectives involved in the shooting. He said he had only learned of the party, at the Club Kalua in Jamaica, earlier in the day, when his son called to invite him.

“I really didn’t want to go,” Mr. Bell testified. “But he kept calling.”

He said he arrived at the club around 12:30 a.m. with a friend who was Sean’s godfather. Mr. Bell said he had planned to stay only a short time.

“I didn’t leave as fast as I thought I would,” he said. “I was spending time with him.”

Mr. Bell and his son sat side by side on a couch at the rear of the club. They had to shout to hear each other because of the loud music. “I was happy for him; very much,” Mr. Bell said.

He testified that he did not see any confrontations while at the club and that when he left, his son appeared to be in good condition. The defense has raised questions about Sean Bell’s sobriety on the night of the shooting.

More than an hour after he left the club, William Bell said, the phone rang at the family’s home in Far Rockaway, Queens. That was when he and Valerie, his wife of 29 years, learned that Sean was at the Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, and that he had died.

Anthony L. Ricco, the defense lawyer for one of the detectives on trial, Gescard F. Isnora, asked Mr. Bell if, upon leaving the club, he considered that it might be the last time he saw his son alive.

“No, you never think that,” Mr. Bell said.

Mr. Bell said he still thought about his son every day. During his testimony, he hinted at his continued attachment: When an assistant district attorney, Charles A. Testagrossa, asked Mr. Bell if he had children, he said yes, and went on to give their names and ages. He said William Jr. was 29, Dolores was 15 and Sean was 24.

Sean Bell died at 23.

As he left the Queens Criminal Court building Tuesday afternoon, Mr. Bell described his testimony as “tiresome.”

At one point in the afternoon, Mrs. Bell broke down and had to step out of the courtroom during a dancer’s vivid testimony about the shooting.

“I’ve been thinking about my son — good things,” Mr. Bell said outside the courthouse. “That’s what’s been helping me get along.”
 
NYPD lieutenant who hid from bullets at Sean Bell shooting under investigation

BY ALISON GENDAR and NICOLE BODE
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Thursday, February 28th 2008, 8:38 AM

An NYPD lieutenant testifying Thursday in the Sean Bell trial began that fateful night by telling his undercover team to be aggressive, ended it hiding under a dashboard when shooting erupted - and is now under investigation.

Lt. Gary Napoli began the night of Nov. 24, 2006, with a pep talk to the eight men and women under his command, about to launch an undercover sting at a Queens strip club.

"This may be our last night together. Let's make this one count," Napoli urged his team, whose mission was to make one more drug or prostitution collar at Jamaica's Kalua Cabaret so they could shut the place down.

Hours later, Napoli was ducking under the dashboard of his unmarked police car as the cops he had revved up earlier unloaded 50 shots into a car of unarmed men, killing Bell, 23, and wounding his two friends.

Today, Napoli is to testify as a prosecution witness about how he allowed that night to spin out of control.

"The story of how this tragedy occurred is a tale of carelessness, verging on incompetence," prosecutor Charles Testagrossa said in his opening statement in the trial of Detectives Michael Oliver, Gescard Isnora and Marc Cooper. "The preparation for the operation fell far short."

Napoli has been on modified duty since the shooting, with an Internal Affairs Bureau investigation hanging over his head, police sources said.

His retirement has been put on hold - after superiors told him he could face departmental charges for failure to supervise his officers.

Napoli was the unofficial leader of the NYPD Club Enforcement Initiative, formed in the summer of 2006 in the wake of two high-profile murders of young female clubgoers in Manhattan's nightlife district.

With two busts for prostitution and drugs the week before the shooting, the team was one arrest away from shutting Kalua down once and for all, prosecutors said. The seedy strip club had a long history of unsavory activity, with some underage prostitutes as young as 13.

But under Napoli's watch, the unit laid out a tactical plan for the night that was "filled with errors and misinformation," prosecutors said.

Among the bungles:

# Napoli failed to assign unit members to specific roles they would take that night, instead letting them assign themselves.

# He allowed three of the four undercovers to leave their badges and weapons behind. Only Isnora brought his gun.

# Napoli told his team to "move in" to back up Isnora - without telling them which direction to go or what to look for.

Napoli, stationed in a Toyota Camry across the street from Kalua, received regular updates from three undercovers trying to make a prostitution bust inside the club.

He spread the word to his other officers after Isnora warned him about a man in a White Sox baseball cap he suspected had a gun.

When Isnora lost sight of the White Sox hat suspect - and instead decided to tail Bell's bachelor party - Napoli passed along scant information to the rest of the team, never telling the other officers they were looking for a new group of men, prosecutors said. It was unclear if Isnora ever told him explicitly of the switch.

Sources said Napoli's testimony could be used by both sides - to defend the officers as victims of an incompetent leader, or to hammer Isnora for providing incomplete information and setting off a spiral of violence.

Either way, they said, the damage to Napoli's reputation has been done.

"He's telling people, 'After Friday, I could be cleared,'" said one source familiar with the case. "But it's just beginning."
 
Ranking Officer Expected to Testify About Sean Bell’s Killing

By MICHAEL WILSON
Published: February 28, 2008

Prosecutors in the trial of three detectives accused in the shooting death of Sean Bell plan to call the detectives’ commanding officer to testify on Thursday about the club enforcement detail that he supervised, and to be questioned about supposed blunders it made, according to people who have been briefed on the case.

Since the Nov. 25, 2006, shooting outside a strip club in Jamaica, Queens, critics have accused the commanding officer, Lt. Gary Napoli, of running a disorganized operation. Part of his address to the team earlier that night turned out to have had a prophetic air, as quoted by an assistant district attorney, Charles A. Testagrossa, at trial on Monday.

“This may be our last night together,” the lieutenant told the team, according to Mr. Testagrossa. The lieutenant added, “Let’s make it count.”

Lieutenant Napoli will be the first police officer to testify who was at the shooting, as the trial zeros in on the 50 shots fired by the police at Mr. Bell and two of his friends, one of whom, officers said, was suspected of having a gun.

The shooting occurred after Mr. Bell, who was to be married later that day, left a bachelor party at Club Kalua.

Mr. Bell and his friends, Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield, had argued with a man parked near the club, the detectives’ lawyers have said, and when the men left for Mr. Bell’s car, the police approached them on Liverpool Street. In the confrontation that followed, Mr. Bell was killed and Mr. Guzman and Mr. Benefield were wounded. No gun was found.

Detectives Gescard F. Isnora, who fired first, and 11 times in all, and Michael Oliver, who fired 31 times, face charges of first- and second-degree manslaughter. Detective Marc Cooper, who fired 4 times from Lieutenant Napoli’s car, faces two misdemeanor charges of reckless endangerment. Four more shots were fired by another detective and a police officer; they were not charged.

Lieutenant Napoli has described the evening of the shooting in interviews with police investigators. The club enforcement detail had met at the Seventh Precinct station house on the Lower East Side of Manhattan the night before.

Prosecutors contend that the detail was disorganized from the start, its members having chosen their own roles in the night’s mission rather than having received them from Lieutenant Napoli. “The preparation for the operation fell far short,” Mr. Testagrossa said in court.

The lieutenant is scheduled to appear on Thursday as a witness for the prosecutor, but he is expected to receive harsh questioning.

“He’s calling him as his witness, but treating him in a very dismissive way,” said a person who has been briefed on the case but who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the trial is under way.

On cross-examination, the defense lawyers are expected to point out that the lieutenant was in charge throughout the night. “Showing each individual defendant was doing what they were doing because they were told to do so by a superior officer,” the person briefed on the case said. “These guys weren’t cowboys.”

There had been a rumor in November 2006 that the club enforcement team was soon to be cut in half or dissolved, Mr. Testagrossa said in his opening statement. Lieutenant Napoli announced at the planning meeting the night before the shooting that in the hours ahead, the team, which had already conducted one undercover operation at Club Kalua, would return there, where they could help close it down for good if they made one more arrest.

Detective Isnora and others, working undercover, were to solicit prostitutes or try to buy drugs, and Detective Oliver and other officers parked outside were to make any arrests.

But the plan changed when Detective Isnora called the lieutenant to report his suspicions that a man inside was armed. A short while later, Detective Isnora, who had just witnessed the exchange between Mr. Bell and the man parked out front, called again and said, “It’s getting hot on Liverpool, for real. I think there’s a gun,” the police have said.

Lieutenant Napoli told investigators that his vehicle, an unmarked rental car driven by another detective and with Detective Cooper in the back seat, drove past Detective Isnora, who nodded toward Mr. Bell’s car. The lieutenant made eye contact with one of the men in Mr. Bell’s car, and he believed the man knew him to be a police officer, according to the investigation report.

As the lieutenant’s car continued down Liverpool, driving away from Mr. Bell, the fatal confrontation began behind his vehicle. Mr. Bell’s car lurched from the curb and struck Detective Isnora, bruising his leg, and then hit Detective Oliver’s van, the police said. Mr. Bell, whose blood alcohol level was later said to be at least twice the legal limit for driving, reversed into a wall, then hit the van again. The detectives opened fire.

Lieutenant Napoli did not. Believing that his car was being fired upon, he crouched down until the shooting stopped several seconds later, he told investigators. He then approached Mr. Bell’s car, his gun drawn, and ordered the men inside to show their hands.
 
Sean Bell's heated words moments before bullets flew

By NICOLE BODE and CORKY SIEMASZKO
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Thursday, February 28th 2008, 3:06 PM

Minutes before Sean Bell was killed in a 50-shot barrage of police bullets, he exchanged angry words with a driver who appeared to be packing heat, one of Bell's pals testified today.

Hugh Jensen said the motorist struck a menacing pose when he got out of his black SUV and began jawing with Bell outside a Queens strip joint.

"Of course I thought he had a gun," said Jensen, 31, said in Queens Supreme Court. "His actions were like he had a gun ... I don't know what he had in his pocket."

Sources identified the driver as Fabio Ciocou, who is expected to testify later at the trial of the three detectives accused with killing Bell on his wedding day - Michael Oliver, Gescard Isnora and Marc Cooper.

The detectives - part of an undercover team doing a sting operation at the Kalua Cabaret on 94th Ave. - contend they opened fire on Bell's car because they believed the groom or one of his two friends had gone to get a gun.

Bell and his buddies turned out to be unarmed.

Jensen, who had just attended Bell's bachelor party at the Club Kalua, said he believes Bell got into it with the SUV driver after the groom went back to the club to retrieve a hat he'd left behind.

"I seen Sean and some gentleman wearing all black going back and forth talking," Jensen said. "It was kind of aggressive. It wasn't a normal conversation."

Jensen said that as he and his other friends drew closer, Bell suddenly turned and shot them "a sarcastic grin." Just as suddenly, Bell stalked off to his car and the SUV driver got into his ride and slowly pulled away.

Moments later, the shooting started.

"It sounded like one gun at first, two-three shots," Jenseen said. "And then, pop pop, ratta-tat-tat, then a pause ... pop pop, ratta-tat-tat."

Jensen said he headed over to see what was happening and saw the aftermath of the collision of Bell's car with what turned out to be a police minivan. He said he saw Bell sitting in his car with his head slumped against a window.

Jensen said he saw saw another man who'd been at the bash, yelling "What are you doing?" at two men in civilian clothing standing on Liverpool St. with their guns drawn. He said he concluded the two men were undercover cops because they were white and it was 4 a.m. in Jamaica.

The man who was yelling at the cops was Larenzo "Red" Kinred, who followed Jensen on the stand.

"I saw an officer shooting," Kinred, 34, testified. "I saw the sparks."

Bell, a 23-year-old father of two, was fatally shot on Nov. 25, 2006. His friends Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield, were badly wounded.

Defense lawyers told the court the cops thought Bell was drunk when he rammed his car into the their minivan and they opened fire in self-defense. Bell's blood-alcohol level was twice the legal limit, authorities have said.

Oliver, who fired 31 rounds, including the fatal shot, and Isnora, who fired 11 shots, have pleaded not guilty to manslaughter. Cooper, who fired four times, pleaded not guilty to reckless endangerment.

Their commanding officer, Lt. Gary Napoli, is scheduled to testify later today. He began that fateful night telling his team to be aggressive and wound up cowering under a dashboard after the shooting started.
 
That LT's testimony is going to bury those officers and himself and rightfully so. The NYPD got to much young niggas on the force in supervisory positions who don't know what the fuck they are doing. They lack the maturity level to even be cops.

The LT is surely going to get fired in a departmental trial, the officer who squeezed off 3 shots will more than likely keep his job but being how high profile this case is he might be forced to retire just for the NYPD to save face.

The other 2 officers who started the whole fiasco by switching from his main target to following Bell he is finished and the officer who shot off 31 shots he is finished as well.

Send them ninjas to jail with ex nypd officer justin vulpe who sodoemized Abner Lueima
 
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