Comment #4

Rick G — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 23:49:24 GMT

The Rule of Law is the glue that holds a civil society together. The 21st Century has marked our ungluing.

Comment #3

GASMETERGUY — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 19:41:08 GMT

I agree that the police are getting too much power. They need to be muzzled and soon. Here in Tennessee they park on I-40, stop who they wish, and search the travelers. Why?

Comment #2

jim695 — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 19:21:10 GMT

<br />Had Sean Bell been the son of a congressman or senator, the officers who murdered him would now be behind bars awaiting certain convictions and guaranteed life sentences. But he wasn't the son of a congressman or senator - he was merely an ordinary citizen, and therefore was perfectly expendable in favor of headlines and furthering the careers of uniformed thugs who can't wait to learn what it feels like to take someone's life.<br /><br />The "reasoning" behind the Justice Department's rel... [ More ]

Comment #1

Rick G — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 16:35:46 GMT

If they keep poking the tiger, they're going to get bit.

Original Blog Entry: "Just Us" Dept. won't charge Sean Bell's killers

time*treat — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 10:37:20 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Qu8hnMgdEU

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local-beat/Cops-in-Sean-Bell-Shooting-Wont-Face-Federal-Civil-Rights-Charges-Sources-84489687.html

Cops in Sean Bell Shooting Won't Face Federal Civil Rights Charges

Justice Department says insufficient evidence to proceed

By JONATHAN DIENST

Updated 6:55 PM EST, Tue, Feb 16, 2010

The officers who gunned down an unarmed Sean Bell on the morning of his wedding won't face federal civil rights charges, sources familiar with the case told NBC New York.

The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division and federal prosecutors in Brooklyn announced their findings Tuesday. U.S. prosecutors reviewed the case after the officers were acquitted in April 2008 in a state trial in Queens.

In a statement, the Justice Department said there is insufficient evidence to pursue federal criminal civil rights charges against the officers.

Under the applicable federal criminal civil rights laws, prosecutors must establish, beyond a reasonable doubt, that a law enforcement officer willfully deprived an individual of a constitutional right, meaning with the deliberate and specific intent to do something the law forbids.... Neither accident, mistake, fear, negligence nor bad judgment is sufficient to establish a federal criminal civil rights violation, the statement explained.

The family of Sean Bell said they were disappointed by the decision.

It's uncommon for U.S. prosecutors to file civil rights charges against police officers, especially those who have been acquitted in lower courts.

The apparent decision not to charge the three detectives in this case is thus not surprising, but it is nonetheless disappointing for the family who lost the 23-year-old Bell to a hail of 50 police bullets just hours before he was supposed to walk down the aisle with fianc e Nicole Paultre-Bell.

They said they were limited by statutes and evidence, a distraught William Bell, Sean's father, told the Daily News after he met with prosecutors. I'm not a lawyer, what can I say. My son's dead, and they can't do anything about it. He can't even rest in peace.

The Nov. 25. 2006, shooting sparked massive outcry across the nation, with civil-rights advocates leading protests and demanding what they perceived to be just convictions for the detectives who shot and killed Bell. Bell had been outside a strip club with two friends after his bachelor's party when undercover cops investigating reports of prostitution at the club apparently misheard their conversation and thought one had a gun.

No weapon was found.

The would-be groom's friends, who were seriously wounded in the fusillade, have led the charge for retribution in conjunction with Bell's family.

The Rev. Al Sharpton voiced extreme disappointment over the decision. In a statement he said Even though two of the three officers in question were Black we will not stop our pursuit of justice in this matter until every measure in the criminal and civil arena has been exhausted. Fifty shots on an unarmed man who engaged in no crime is intolerable.

But Michael Palladino, the President of the Detectives Endowment Association, said he was gratified by the Justice Department's decision.

The Bell family s disappointment is a result of the misinformation disseminated by Al Sharpton from the very beginning. He made this case into something that it was not, Palladino said.

---------- Oh, wait, he must have been an in-sur-gent. ----------

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