NEW YORK, March 15, 2007
New Witness Emerges In NYC Groom Shooting
Five Cops Are Accused Of 50-Bullet Barrage That Killed Man On His Wedding Day
-
Play CBS Video Video Thousands March For Sean Bell CBSNews.com RAW: Large crowds gathered on New York's 5th Avenue in support of Sean Bell, a city resident shot at 50 times and killed by NYPD officers. Protesters offered a range of views.
-
Video Officials On NYPD Shooting CBS News RAW: New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly shared details on the police shooting that killed one man and injured two others.
-
Rev. Al Sharpton, third right, gestures during a news conference along with Trent Benefield, left, and Sean Bell's fiance Nicole Paultre-Bell, right, in New York on March 15, 2007. (AP Photo/Shiho Fukada)
-
Interactive Crime Beat Statistics and specifics on crime in America.
The man testified for about an hour, a person familiar with the investigation, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the secrecy of the grand jury process, told The Associated Press.
The testimony came as the city anxiously awaited word on a decision by the grand jury on the fate of the five officers, who could face a range of charges in the Nov. 25 shooting that killed 23-year-old Sean Bell and wounded two of his friends.
The racial makeup of the 22-member grand jury, reports CBS News affiliate WCBS, is the following: eight are black, seven are white, four are Hispanic, two are Indian, one is Asian, and one was absent from the panel when the count was taken.
Grand jurors were instructed to consider the following charges, reports WCBS: second-degree murder, manslaughter or criminally negligent homicide stemming from Bell's death; and attempted murder, assault or reckless endangerment in the wounding of Bell's two friends.
Detectives' Endowment Association President Michael Palladino said that the new witness was a 55-year-old man who spoke little English. He went to a police station on Wednesday to say he had been working on the night of the shooting near the strip club where it occurred. Palladino had been briefed on the situation by detectives at the police station.
The man told detectives he heard the crash of vehicles and ran out to see what was happening, Palladino said. The man said he saw a black male fire one or two shots at a police officer and then flee into a nearby building. The man told detectives that he also heard police officers identifying themselves as police, Palladino said.
"I don't know where this man came from," Palladino told the AP. "But this guy could have a vital piece of information. ... The man told detectives that he didn't come forward sooner because he was afraid and overwhelmed."
It is not known if the witness is considered credible, but his testimony could help the officers if he helps convince grand jurors that the police were justified in opening fire.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, who has acted as a spokesman for the family of Bell and the surviving victims, said at a news conference that there's something "suspect" about a witness having a change of heart and then suddenly turning up at a police station instead of going to the prosecutor.
"Who determines what is credible, reckless or not?" Sharpton asked, adding that such testimony could taint the grand jury process. "Did he mislead investigators then? Or is he misleading investigators now?"
"This story, as told, smells," Sharpton said in an interview with the AP. He added that he wanted the state attorney general to monitor the grand jury process.
© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
More From U.S.
Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his first nonfiction work since "Tuesdays with Morrie."
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- next
See all 85 CommentsPosted by cmp271 at 08:12 PM : Mar 15, 2007
Without people like Al Sharpton, these murdering police will just lie to a white jury and walk to repeat their crimes again and again; and the family of the victims will never be compensated.
Posted by Gaye5 at 05:12 PM : Mar 15, 2007"
Who is preventing your Susan from spewing her bigoted nonsense?
I'll cut your Susan as much slack as she cuts just about the only person, Sharpton, who is willing to place his life on the line to shed light on the racist attitudes of the New York police!
You are no doubt only taking up for someone of your mentality; because you down there in your OZ are just as bigoted and despicable with the Aboriginal people you derisively call 'darkies'!
Sharpton is a black racist, anything that says a white person is innocent he is against. He is part of the problem in this country.
Let's face it, black faces are hard to see the dark.
I do think, from seeing problems in Philadelphia and New York, that more firearems training is needed. Ideally, it should be weekly. Their guns should be used often enough to be confident of their use. Fifty rounds does not seem to show that confidence.
Did they really need fifty rounds here?
A gun blast has a way of freezing the mind.
Panic is a difficult thing avoid. Abuse is apart of the history of the N.Y.P.D. This why there is a grand jury. This tragedy appears to be an accident, and it is duty of all involved to thorougly understand what happened, so there is not a repeat of a tragedy like this again.
You really do know how to read people, don't you? I'm intrigued by your powers of psychoanalysis.
Tell me, pray, what you think of this guy: Jesus Christ. He sided with the poor. Defended the weak. Spoke out against injustice. Challenged the governing powers. Was he a first class idiot too?
Dr Spock brought this on.. In My opinion, Dr Spock's Mother should Have been the first person to use Legalized Abortion!
It is very hard to know what to believe in the media as they tell lies so much, but In the beginning I thought that they had done the right thing in shooting the groom, then as I read couple more articles I started to wondered if it was because the groom was black and the police were white that it had turned against the police. we have just this sort of case here in OZ at the moment..one police man, who has worked amongst the aborigines for many years and been their friend had to shoot an aboriginal man and the whole place turned against him, he was right in what he did but at this moment it is going against him because he is white.. my son is a policeman so he knows the inside of the case...
As there is nothing in our papers here in OZ and I have only read a portion of the articles that came out, I also had begun to wonder as to why there was such a shoot out when the man didn't have a gun in his hand. Now that I have read that there were also black police in the shooting it changes my thoughts on things..... I had wondered if it was reversed racism.
I'm lost. What does this have to do with reverse racism if the police were telling the truth? And, I doubt that you will see a drop in police recruitments. What else would many of these guys do?
This witness being questionable - that was true without Sharpton saying a word. But both stories are questionable - finding the truth here is what is important. There's a lot to look at.
You do have a tremendous ability to emphasize the mundane over the important.
A man is fatally shot on the morning of his wedding day (yes, he's deceased, but the shock of his killing on a day that was supposed to be memorable makes it harder to bear). By your own admission, "no doubt the police went overboard" and that resulted in his death. Yet what you really care about is "the 'liberal bias' in the news", the "*sob* *sob* slop about the unmarried man on his wedddddddding day".
Shame on you.
If Al Sharpton has no credibility, why does he bother you so much? Seems to me that you give him a lot of credibility. If fact, I think he was on the cover of the "100 people who are *** up America" book. If that's not giving someone credibility, then what is?
The push to not allow parents to smack their children under the guise of it being child abuse is causing massive problems, and ever so many of these kids grow up to be undisciplined and a problem... Here in Australia, my Principal husband has watched the fast decline in the behaviour of children since teachers and parents were not allowed to strap their children..bullying has gone through the roof, and children are not as secure as they used to be...they seem to be more fragile, far too many children have become so rotten that many of his friends have left teaching as they feel that are no longer able to teach. they feel that too often they are only controlling the classes, and that the problem is only going to get worse as the push for no smacking takes control, and more parents put their children into day cares to get rid of them because they cant control their children any more....
Questioning this witnesses credibility is completely valid - I'm just saying he could be for real as well as he could be fake. And people who question him just based on timing have to recognize that you could question his fakeness based on timing as well.
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- next
See all 85 Comments