Post by upfromsumdirt on Nov 28, 2006 16:55:45 GMT -5
50 BULLETS AND A DEATH IN QUEENS
Written by NY Times Editorial
Tuesday, 28 November 2006
Much has changed in New York since Amadou Diallo, an unarmed African immigrant, was killed in a hail of 41 bullets fired by city police officers in 1999. Mr. Diallo’s death sent racial tensions in the city nearly to a boiling point — helped along by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who regularly shunned meetings with black leaders and failed to treat the crisis with the urgency it required.
Now Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his police commissioner, Raymond Kelly, are dealing differently with their own Diallo-style disaster. Police officers firing 50 rounds early last Saturday killed Sean Bell, an unarmed man who was to have married his high school sweetheart later in the day. The mayor and the commissioner moved quickly to answer questions and to hear the concerns of the victim’s family and the community. But their responsiveness will not bring back Sean Bell. The challenge here is far greater than good communications.
The officers who killed Mr. Bell were part of a sting operation at a Queens nightclub suspected of narcotics, prostitution and weapons violations. According to published reports, the officers have said that as Mr. Bell and his friends left the club and headed toward their car, an undercover detective heard one of them say he was going to get a gun. They also reportedly said that when the men entered the car, the detective pulled his gun and identified himself, but the car suddenly gunned forward, hit him in the shin and then struck an unmarked police minivan. The officers then opened fire.
The tragedy may simply involve two sets of very frightened men who reacted instinctively to what they thought was imminent danger. But only one of the sets was armed. There was no gun in the car, nor on the shooting victims, who sat helpless inside while five police officers began firing 50 rounds at them. One emptied his gun, a 9mm semiautomatic, reloaded and emptied it again, accounting for 31 rounds. The shooting appears to have been frantic, with bullets shattering windows as far away as the AirTrain station, hundreds of yards from the scene. Two of Mr. Bell’s companions were injured; miraculously, there were no other casualties.
Unlike the Diallo tragedy, the officers involved in the Queens shooting were not all white. They were also not inexperienced. The first bullet came from an officer with five years on the job, and the detective who fired the 31 rounds had 12. But it is hard to explain their actions as anything but panic.
Police rules mandate that an officer pause after firing three rounds to assess the situation. If the shooters had followed procedures, they might have seen there was no threat before it was too late. Mayor Bloomberg has rightly called for a quick and impartial investigation. The officers must be held accountable for what has happened. But the Police Department must also confront the fact that a disaster that everyone swore to prevent seven years ago has repeated itself in Queens.
Written by NY Times Editorial
Tuesday, 28 November 2006
Much has changed in New York since Amadou Diallo, an unarmed African immigrant, was killed in a hail of 41 bullets fired by city police officers in 1999. Mr. Diallo’s death sent racial tensions in the city nearly to a boiling point — helped along by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who regularly shunned meetings with black leaders and failed to treat the crisis with the urgency it required.
Now Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his police commissioner, Raymond Kelly, are dealing differently with their own Diallo-style disaster. Police officers firing 50 rounds early last Saturday killed Sean Bell, an unarmed man who was to have married his high school sweetheart later in the day. The mayor and the commissioner moved quickly to answer questions and to hear the concerns of the victim’s family and the community. But their responsiveness will not bring back Sean Bell. The challenge here is far greater than good communications.
The officers who killed Mr. Bell were part of a sting operation at a Queens nightclub suspected of narcotics, prostitution and weapons violations. According to published reports, the officers have said that as Mr. Bell and his friends left the club and headed toward their car, an undercover detective heard one of them say he was going to get a gun. They also reportedly said that when the men entered the car, the detective pulled his gun and identified himself, but the car suddenly gunned forward, hit him in the shin and then struck an unmarked police minivan. The officers then opened fire.
The tragedy may simply involve two sets of very frightened men who reacted instinctively to what they thought was imminent danger. But only one of the sets was armed. There was no gun in the car, nor on the shooting victims, who sat helpless inside while five police officers began firing 50 rounds at them. One emptied his gun, a 9mm semiautomatic, reloaded and emptied it again, accounting for 31 rounds. The shooting appears to have been frantic, with bullets shattering windows as far away as the AirTrain station, hundreds of yards from the scene. Two of Mr. Bell’s companions were injured; miraculously, there were no other casualties.
Unlike the Diallo tragedy, the officers involved in the Queens shooting were not all white. They were also not inexperienced. The first bullet came from an officer with five years on the job, and the detective who fired the 31 rounds had 12. But it is hard to explain their actions as anything but panic.
Police rules mandate that an officer pause after firing three rounds to assess the situation. If the shooters had followed procedures, they might have seen there was no threat before it was too late. Mayor Bloomberg has rightly called for a quick and impartial investigation. The officers must be held accountable for what has happened. But the Police Department must also confront the fact that a disaster that everyone swore to prevent seven years ago has repeated itself in Queens.
