May 2 http://www.essence.com/essence/lifestyle/voices/0,16109,1736934,00.html#
| By Cynthia Gordy |
| (May 2, 2008—New York) It was a trying week for Nicole Paultre Bell. The raw heartache of losing her fiancé, Sean Bell, in a storm of 50 police bullets on November 25, 2006—the day they were to have been married—surfaced all over again when a judge declared the three New York police detectives indicted in the shooting not guilty on all counts. Immediately after the verdict, Paultre Bell, 23, fled the courtroom in tears, her face crumpled in an expression of hurt and dismay. But since that Friday, April 25, the mother of two has shown that her fight for justice did not end in that Queens courtroom. She has met with members of Congress and national civil rights organizations to collectively lobby for federal charges against the officers, who were working undercover when they shot at the unarmed Bell. The U.S. Department of Justice has said it will investigate the case with the FBI.
Essence.com: What was going through your mind after the verdict?
Nicole Paultre Bell: When I heard the judge’s decision, I was devastated. I couldn’t believe that after everything we’ve been through and what happened to Sean, that there was no result. Basically the decision says that it was okay. I was just devastated.
Essence.com: Had you ever considered that it might go this way?
Paultre Bell: With all the different charges, and with everything that happened that night, in my eyes, there had to be something. I wasn’t expecting them to be found guilty of the highest charge. I knew it was not going to be exactly what I wanted. But I did not expect it to be nothing.
Essence.com: After the verdict was issued, your family went into an office at the courthouse. What was going on in there?
Paultre Bell: Everyone was trying to gather their thoughts. We just shared words of comfort and encouragement. We told each other that it wasn’t over and that we had to continue our fight for justice. Once we left court, we met up at the cemetery, where we paid our respects to Sean. We prayed. We cried. My older daughter Jada; she’s 5. She has a lot of questions. When I got home I didn’t have to tell her that something was wrong. I told her that they said no to justice, but I also told her that it wasn’t over.
Essence.com: One of the detectives, Marc Cooper, apologized to your family in a press conference after the verdict. Your response?
Paultre Bell: I did see their press conference. I can say that, as we were sitting in court every day, when I would look over at them, he would be the only one who looked remorseful. So I accepted his apology. I’m sad to say that’s the only apology we got from anyone on their side.
Essence.com: People all over the country are fired up and ready to take action against this ruling. What has it been like for you to see the emotional response from so many people?
Paultre Bell: It’s surreal. I never would have thought that my family and I would be at the center of something like this. It’s amazing to me when people come up to me and tell me how I have their support. It all gives me strength to keep going. Some celebrities have reached out too. Hillary Clinton called again. She let us know that she sent her condolences to me and Sean’s parents, and she said that she will fully support the Justice Department investigation. I also got a phone call from P. Diddy. He also extended his condolences and told me he was proud of how strong I stood and hung in there.
Essence.com: I understand you’ve received negative attention, like prank phone calls to your home.
Paultre Bell: We had several phone calls of someone laughing at us the day of the verdict. It was just awful, especially since I had just gotten right back from the cemetery. There were also e-mails sent to my Web site [nicolepaultrebell.com]. In one e-mail, the person said, “Sean got what he deserved. He was a perp.” One of the phone calls of someone laughing, we traced it to the Sergeants Benevolent Association [of New York City]. NYPD Internal Affairs let us know they’re investigating it. There was a statement put out by the head of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, but they haven’t responded to me directly. [The SBA, in statements to the press, questioned the validity of the allegations. Essence.com has reached out for comment.]
Essence.com: Are you filing a civil suit next?
Paultre Bell: No, that will be the last thing that is done. Right now we’re hoping that when the Justice Department looks into this, I pray that they will show us justice. I’m not giving up. I’m prepared to be a part of any protests as well. This is round two. This happened to my family. So I’m going to stand strong and pray that justice is done.
Essence.com: You seem newly energized during this “round two.” Are you angry?
Paultre Bell: I was let down. It didn’t feel like that was the right decision. But I’m channeling my energy on acting to correct it. I have to stay positive. With all the negativity going on, I have to keep moving forward and keep looking toward something positive.
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April 27Sean Bell’s mother collapsed at the verdict.
His fiancée, Nicole Paultre-Bell, rushed from the courtroom stricken with grief.
His father, William Bell was just plain angry.
“It’s a slap in the face and a kick in the ass,” he told WABC/Channel 7 outside Paultre-Bell’s Far Rockaway, Queens, home. “Here’s a judge that says he didn’t care about the law. All he care about is what he felt . . . To me, what’s that supposed to mean, we’re back in Alabama?”
After learning at 9 a.m. that the three officers charged in the 2006 death of her son would go free, mom Valerie burst into tears in court. She and William left the courthouse a short time later and made their way though a wild crowd of protesters to a small motorcade waiting to take them away.
“They got away with murder,” said Joseph Guzman’s uncle Elliot Hankerson, who was with them at the club on Nov. 25, 2006.
“How do you empty your gun and reload it and start shooting again?”"
Bell’s mother and about two dozens family and friends - including the Rev. Al Sharpton - gathered at Sean Bell’s grave at Nassau Knolls Cemetery in Port Washington, LI, later in the morning. For 90 minutes, they prayed and mourned.
Paultre-Bell, who was to be wed to Bell on the day he was killed, was the last to leave, kneeling and saying her good-byes alone.
A day after three New York police detectives were acquitted on all counts in the case of Sean Bell — an unarmed man killed in a hail of 50 police gunshots — his fiancee told supporters that the justice system let her down.
“On April 25, 2008, they killed Sean all over again,” Nicole Paultre Bell told supporters at a rally organized by the Rev. Al Sharpton.
“That’s what it felt like to us. That’s what it felt like to us,” she said Saturday. “Yesterday, they — the justice system — let me down. I gave them the benefit of the doubt,” she said. “I’m still praying for justice because it’s not over. It’s far from over.”
Bell spoke after Sharpton criticized the judge who acquitted the three officers, saying the case should have been heard by a jury.
“If people are on the public payroll, doing their public duty, they should be required to face a public jury,” Sharpton said at the National Action Network headquarters.
The officers chose to have a judge instead of a jury.
Sharpton said the victims were unfairly portrayed as dishonest.
“These three families have had to endure and have had to abide through the most, in my judgment, scandalous denigration of victims that I’ve seen in my lifetime,” he said.
On Friday, Justice Arthur Cooperman cleared Detectives Michael Oliver and Gescard Isnora of manslaughter, assault and reckless endangerment in the death of Sean Bell.
Detective Marc Cooper was cleared of reckless endangerment.
Bell, 23, died in November 2006 in a 50-bullet barrage — 31 fired by Oliver — hours before he was to be married. Two of his companions were wounded in the gunfire outside a Queens nightclub.
Alexander Jason, an expert witness for the defense, produced a video demonstrating how quickly Oliver could have fired off 31 rounds, including a pause to reload.
The three officers made brief statements more than four hours after the verdict.
“I want to say sorry to Bell family for the tragedy,” Cooper said.
Isnora thanked the judge “for his fair and accurate decision today.”
Oliver praised Cooperman “for a fair and just decision.”
Patrick Lynch, president of the New York Police Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, said “there’s no winners; there’s no losers” in the case.
“We still have a death that occurred. We still have police officers that have to live with the fact that there was a death involved in their case,” Lynch said.
But, he added, the verdict assured police officers that they will be treated fairly in New York’s courts.
In announcing the verdict, Cooperman said he found problems with the prosecution’s case. He said some prosecution witnesses contradicted themselves, and he cited prior convictions and incarcerations of witnesses.
“At times, the testimony just didn’t make sense,” Cooperman said, according to a transcript released by his office.
He also cited the demeanor of some witnesses on the stand.
Bell was killed just before dawn on his wedding day, November 25, 2006. He and several friends were winding up an all-night bachelor party at the Kalua Club in Queens, a strip club that was under investigation by a NYPD undercover unit looking into complaints of guns, drugs and prostitution.
Undercover detectives were inside the club, and plainclothes officers were stationed outside.
Witnesses said that about 4 a.m., closing time, as Bell and his friends left the club, an argument broke out. Believing that one of Bell’s friends, Joseph Guzman, was going to get a gun from Bell’s car, one of the undercover detectives followed the men and called for backup.
What happened next was at the heart of the trial, prosecuted by the assistant district attorney in Queens.
Bell, Guzman and Trent Benefield got into the car, with Bell at the wheel. The detectives drew their weapons, said Guzman and Benefield, who testified that they never heard the plainclothes detectives identify themselves as police.
Bell was in a panic to get away from the armed men, his friends testified.
But the detectives thought Bell was trying to run down one of them, believed that their lives were in danger and started shooting, according to their lawyers.
A total of 50 bullets were fired by five NYPD officers. Only three were charged with crimes.
No gun was found near Bell or his friends.
Paultre Bell, Guzman and Benefield have filed a wrongful-death lawsuit in federal court that has been stayed pending the outcome of the criminal trial.
Federal prosecutors will conduct a review to determine whether there were any civil rights violations, Brown said.
Soon after Bell’s death, his fiancee changed her name to Nicole Paultre Bell. She is now raising the couple’s two daughters, ages 5 and 1.
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