From left, Detectives Gescard F. Isnora, Michael Oliver and Marc Cooper at the courthouse, where opening arguments and the first witnesses were heard Monday.
The three police detectives entered with lawyers at their sides and the stares of a crowded courtroom at their backs. The men, who once worked undercover in the shadows, were now center stage, sitting not among their fellow officers, but at the defense table.
City Room: Sean Bell Shooting
Fifteen months to the day after Sean Bell was killed in a blast of 50 police bullets, and after rounds and rounds of court hearings, motions and countermotions, the trial of three of the officers who fired their handguns that cold morning began Monday in State Supreme Court in Queens. The proceedings began with a quick start at two minutes before 9 a.m. and kept a brisk pace all day.
Prosecutors went first, describing the detectives as a careless and incompetent group run amok the morning of Nov. 25, 2006, unorganized and desperate for an arrest as their nightclub detail was coming to a close. “The story of how this tragedy occurred is a tale of carelessness,” said Charles A. Testagrossa, an assistant district attorney, adding that the shooting “can only be characterized as criminal.”
Defense lawyers argued that Mr. Bell’s actions that morning led the detectives to believe themselves at deadly risk and provoked a shooting both justified and reasonable. One lawyer went a step further, implying that Mr. Bell’s actions were motivated by racial stereotype, and he described his client, Detective Gescard F. Isnora, as a hard-working black man whose actions were misread that morning because of assumptions.
“They see a Negro with a gun,” said the lawyer, Anthony L. Ricco, describing the reactions of Mr. Bell, who was black, and his friends to Detective Isnora. “Just another Negro on the street with a gun.”
The heightened emotions continued with the prosecution’s first witness, Mr. Bell’s fiancée, Nicole Paultre Bell, who brought a tearful jolt to the proceedings in talking about her identification of Mr. Bell’s body.
Outside the courthouse, protesters marched, some carrying signs bearing the numbers 1 to 50, for each shot fired. The demonstrations, while orderly, were not orchestrated, with a prayer vigil before the trial, conducted by the Rev. Al Sharpton, followed by fringe groups’ call for violence against the police.
Detective Isnora and Detective Michael Oliver face charges of first- and second-degree manslaughter. A third detective, Marc Cooper, fired four shots and hit no one, but one of his rounds struck an AirTrain terminal, and he was charged with reckless endangerment, a misdemeanor.
The case is being heard by Justice Arthur J. Cooperman. The defendants waived their right to a jury trial after their attempt to have the case moved out of Queens failed. With no time needed to select jurors or to explain the nuances of the law to them, the case moved quickly, from opening statements to the first witnesses.
Prosecutors first laid out how on that Saturday morning around 4 a.m., Mr. Bell was leaving Club Kalua in Jamaica, Queens, where he had been celebrating his impending wedding — scheduled for later in the day — with childhood friends and his father. The detectives were working undercover to make arrests at the club for prostitution or drugs. The two groups may never have noticed each other if not for a testy exchange between Mr. Bell and another man outside the front door.
Prosecutors said Mr. Bell exchanged words with a man standing near a black sport utility vehicle who had “muttered his unhappiness” that Mr. Bell was drunk “and was overheard,” Mr. Testagrossa said. But he said the conversation never escalated and ended without incident. “Not a single blow was thrown, and no gun was displayed.”
The detectives saw the confrontation and decided to follow Mr. Bell. They have said that they believed some of the men with Mr. Bell were armed. Detective Isnora trailed Mr. Bell and two of his friends, Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield, to their car, which was parked around the corner from the club, on Liverpool Street. He did not call for backup as he approached the men, as is standard in undercover operations, Mr. Testagrossa said, and his communication with his team was lax.
Detective Isnora has said that he pinned his police shield to his collar, but Mr. Testagrossa said it may not have been visible to Mr. Bell and his friends, and that rather than shouts of “Police!” witnesses said they heard the detective say, “Yo, let me holler at you.”
By that time, the three men were in the car. Mr. Bell drove forward, striking the detective’s leg before hitting an unmarked van carrying Detective Oliver and another detective, who was not charged in the case. Mr. Bell then reversed, hitting a wall before speeding forward and hitting the van again.
Mr. Testagrossa said Mr. Guzman looked at the detective and saw only a man with a gun, and felt a bullet tear into his shoulder before he shouted, “Let’s do it!” to Mr. Bell, urging him to flee.
Mr. Testagrossa said Detective Oliver began shooting after Detective Isnora, firing 31 shots, with the briefest of pauses to reload. “Had he paused to reassess, he would have discovered that no gunfire was coming from the occupants of the vehicle,” the prosecutor said.
Defense lawyers portrayed the shooting as the result of a lethal mixture: in Mr. Bell’s case, of alcohol and bravado that escalated when he ignored orders from the police to stop — and then tried to run over Detective Isnora.
“As he was trained to do, Detective Oliver took immediate action to protect the life of Detective Isnora,” said James J. Culleton, a lawyer for Detective Oliver. He said the prosecution’s “fatal flaw” was its “fixation” on the number of police rounds fired. What was important, he said, was why he fired those first shots. “The only reason Detective Oliver sits in this courtroom,” he added, “is because he fired 31 shots.”
Mr. Ricco’s opening statements were less clinical and more emotional, referring to Detective Isnora by his nickname, Jesse, and describing him as the quiet, religious son of immigrants.
“Jesse was a person of color who answered the call of the community,” he said.
In front of juries, lawyers are often hesitant to criticize those who died. Mr. Ricco appeared unconcerned about speaking ill of Mr. Bell while facing his audience of one, the judge. He described Mr. Bell as drunk and spoiling for a fight after the confrontation with the man outside the club. The man, identified as Fabio Coicou, seemed to criticize his drunkenness, and Mr. Bell went into an “angry fit,” Mr. Ricco said.
“He put on hold his dreams,” he said. “He put his marriage to his high school sweetheart on the back burner.”
The lawyer said there was talk of guns between the men, and that Mr. Coicou heard one of Mr. Bell’s friends say he had a “gat,” slang for a gun. Such testimony would seem to bolster the detectives’ claims that they heard mention of a gun.
When Mr. Bell struck Detective Isnora with the car, “He intended to run the black man into the ground,” Mr. Ricco said.
Outside the courtroom, a lawyer for Mr. Bell’s fiancée criticized Mr. Ricco’s statements. “In some ways, they played a race and class card today, and that’s unfortunate,” the lawyer, Michael Hardy, said.
Ms. Bell, who took her fiancée’s name after he was killed, was not at the club that night, but was called to the witness stand on Monday to describe her relationship with Mr. Bell, and its tragic end. She answered questions from Assistant District Attorney Peter T. Reese without tears, until he began asking about when she saw his body at a hospital that morning. She fidgeted with a tissue in her hands.
“Can you tell us where you saw him and what was his apparent physical condition?” Mr. Reese asked.
Ms. Bell, dressed in black, wept, and remained silent for several moments. She finally replied, “He was in the morgue.”
Testimony continued through the afternoon. A police crime scene analyst, Detective Brian Skelton, used photographs he took at Club Kalua, with its bar, dancer poles and small changing room, in describing the layout. A sign posted at the club’s front door and seen in one of the photographs — “Must Buy 1 Drink Every Half Hour” — led to further questions from the defense lawyers. But Mr. Reese, one of the prosecutors, suggested that the rule could include nonalcoholic drinks.
The last witness was Sean Spencer, 39, a bouncer at the club. He testified that he saw no argument involving Mr. Bell, but he conceded that he may have missed it. He said he heard 25 to 30 gunshots, then after a pause of 10 to 15 seconds, another burst of 25 to 30 shots.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/26/nyregion/26bell.html
