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NEWS & LETTERS, April - May 2007NY cops indicted for Sean Bell's murderNew York City--Following months of protests in African-American neighborhoods and midtown Manhattan over the Nov. 25 shootings that killed Sean Bell and wounded two of his companions, a grand jury has indicted three of the five cops involved. The victims were unarmed and were in their car leaving a nightclub on what was to be Bell's wedding day, when the cops fired 50 times at them. The grand jury returned serious charges, including first and second degree manslaughter against the cop who fired 31 shots, reloading his gun to do so, and against the cop who fired 11 times. The indictments were greeted with hope, skepticism and continued anger. People question whether any of the cops will be convicted, remembering the acquittals of the cops who killed Amadou Diallo after the trial was moved far from New York City, and the many other cases of failure to indict or convict cops who took the lives of innocent Black and Latino men. Paultre Bell, the murdered man's finance and mother of his children, said when the indictments were released, "Today was just a baby step in this long road we have ahead of us. We are here to fight, and we're going to continue to pray for justice." The Bell family is receiving support from families of other murdered youth. Nicholas Heyward, Sr., whose son was killed by a N.Y.C. housing cop in 1994, stated at a rally after the indictments: "It's the DA's fault that not all five of them are indicted. And we have no trust or faith that DA Joe Brown will prosecute to the fullest the ones that are indicted. In my son's case, in the case of Malcolm Ferguson (Juanita Young's son, killed in 2000) and Anthony Rosario (Margarita Rosario's son, killed in 1996), and many others, the DA failed to prosecute the cops and continued to cover up for the officers. We know that these police officers right now need to be locked up and in jail. But they're not. That's why it's important that we continue to fight, continue to struggle." |
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