Bell's Fiancee: Justice System Let Me Down

The fiancee of an unarmed man shot to death by police on his wedding day said Saturday that "the justice system let me down" after the three detectives were acquitted of all charges in his killing.

"April 25, 2008: They killed Sean all over again," Nicole Paultre Bell softly told hundreds of people gathered at Rev. Al Sharpton's National Action Network headquarters. "That's what if felt like to us."

Paultre Bell, in her first public remarks since storming out of a Queens courtroom on Friday after the NYPD detectives were cleared in 23-year-old Sean Bell's killing, said she would seek another decision in the case.

"I'm still praying for justice," she said, "because it's not over."

Bell's family, shooting victim Joseph Guzman and Sharpton lashed out at the legal system at a rally at Sharpton's offices before they joined more than 300 people marching through more than 20 blocks in Harlem. Fifty protesters carried white placards with a number on each sign, referring to the number of shots fired on Bell and his two friends outside a Queens strip club on his wedding day in 2006.

"We've got a long fight," said Guzman. "We're still in it. ... We're going to struggle. We're going to get through."

Sharpton lambasted the judge who acquitted the detectives, saying a jury should been seated to decide guilt or innocence.

"If people are on the public payroll, doing their public duty, they should be required to face a public jury," Sharpton said. He later promised to "shut the city down" with organized civil disobedience. "Shut it down! Shut it down!" supporters chanted.

In his ruling Friday, Justice Arthur Cooperman said that the inconsistent testimony, courtroom demeanor and rap sheets of the prosecution witnesses - mainly Bell's friends - "had the effect of eviscerating" their credibility.

"At times, the testimony just didn't make sense," the judge said.

The verdict elicited gasps as well as tears of joy and sorrow. Detective Michael Oliver, who fired 31 of the shots, wept at the defense table, while Bell's mother cried in the packed courtroom. Shouts of "Murderers! Murderers!" and "KKK!" rang out outside the courthouse.

Protests followed later in the day, and police said two demonstrators were arrested near the site of the shooting Friday night. One was arrested on a disorderly conduct charge, the other on a charge of obstructing governmental administration, police said.

Oliver and Gescard Isnora were acquitted of charges that included manslaughter, assault and reckless endangerment. The third officer, Marc Cooper, faced lesser charges.

The officers later appeared at a news conference with the leader of their union, offering brief statements and taking no questions. "I'd like to say sorry to the Bell family for the tragedy," an emotional Cooper said.

Trent Benefield, a friend of Bell's who was wounded in the shooting, tearfully denounced the judge's decision as unfair.

"They should have gotten what they deserve," he told the Daily News.

Bell was killed outside the Queens strip club as he was leaving his bachelor party. The officers - undercover detectives who were investigating reports of prostitution at the club - said they thought one of the men had a gun.

The slaying heightened tensions in the city and stoked long-standing allegations of racism and excessive use of force on the part of New York City's police, even though two of the officers charged are black.

Police had assigned extra officers to the courthouse and had helicopters in the air to help deal with any unrest Friday. But within an hour, the angry, weeping crowd of about 200 people outside the courthouse had scattered, and no arrests were made.

The officers had complained that pretrial publicity had unfairly painted them as cold-blooded killers. They opted to have the judge instead of a jury decide the case, a strategy that appeared to pay off.

After the verdict, the U.S. attorney's office said it would look into the case and "take appropriate action if the evidence indicates a prosecutable violation of federal criminal civil rights statutes."

In addition, relatives of the victims have sued the city, and those cases carry the potential for multimillion-dollar payouts.

Also, the officers, who had been on paid leave, still face possible departmental charges that could result in their firing.

The case brought back painful memories of other New York police shootings, such as the 1999 killing of Amadou Diallo, an African immigrant who was gunned down in a barrage of 41 bullets by police officers who mistook his wallet for a gun. The acquittal of the officers in that case led to days of protests, with hundreds arrested.

The nearly two-month trial was marked by deeply divergent accounts of the night.

The defense painted the victims as drunken thugs who the officers believed were armed and dangerous. Prosecutors sought to convince the judge that the victims had been minding their own business, and that the officers were inept, trigger-happy cowboys.

Bell's companions - Benefield and Guzman - were both wounded; Guzman still has four bullets lodged in his body. Both testified. Guzman, a burly ex-convict, grew combative during cross-examination and said of Isnora: "This dude is shooting like he's crazy, like he's out of his mind."

None of the officers took the stand. Instead, the judge heard transcripts of the officers telling a grand jury that they believed they had good reason to use deadly force.

The officers said that as the club closed around 4 a.m., they heard Guzman say, "Yo, go get my gun" - something Bell's friends denied.

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.

Benefield and Guzman testified that there were no orders from the police.

With tires screeching, glass breaking and bullets flying, the officers said they believed they were the ones under fire. Oliver responded by emptying his semiautomatic pistol, reloading, and emptying it again. Isnora fired 11 rounds, and Cooper four. Two other officers who fired weren't charged.

When the smoke had cleared, there was no weapon inside Bell's blood-splattered car.