The three police officers indicted in the shooting go on trial
Monday in a case that has sparked protests and debate over
excessive force and police conduct in New York.
Detective Michael Oliver fired 31 shots, including the one that
killed Bell. Detective Gescard Isnora squeezed off 11 rounds, and
Detective Marc Cooper fired four times. Oliver and Isnora have
pleaded not guilty to manslaughter; Cooper has pleaded not guilty
to reckless endangerment.
Bell's fiancee is expected to be the first witness, and she said
she plans to in court every day.
"I feel like I need to know. I need to know why this
happened," said Paultre Bell, who had her name legally changed
after her fiance's death. "I wake up one day and my world is
turned upside down. I have to know why this happened, my family
deserves to know."
Police union officials and defense lawyers have said the
detectives believed Bell and his friends were going to get a gun,
though no weapon was found. The officers opened fire after the car
the three men were in lurched forward, bumped Isnora and slammed
into an unmarked police minivan, authorities said.
The detectives waived their right to a jury trial after an
appeals court turned down a defense bid to move the case out of New
York City. Veteran state Supreme Court Judge Arthur Cooperman will
hear the case by himself.
Without a jury to sway, the trial will likely be less
theatrical, but court officials still expect big crowds from both
sides and a large media presence in the ceremonial hall at Queens
State Supreme Court that seats about 190.
Bell's wounded friends, Trent Benefield and Joseph Guzman, were
to testify as witnesses and won't be in the courtroom audience.
Guzman still has four bullets in his body and was disabled by the
shooting, according to his lawyer, Sanford Rubenstein. Benefield
has a rod in his leg where bones were shattered.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys did not want to comment in the
days leading up to the trial.
Legal experts said the absence of a jury might help the
defendants defuse some of the case's volatility, especially with a
20-year veteran like Cooperman on the bench.
"They don't want to take a chance on a compromised verdict,"
said Eugene O'Donnell, a professor of police studies at John Jay
College of Criminal Justice. "The thought is, a judge can simply
stare out into the abyss, bite the bullet and do what has to be
done."
While jurors generally believe that police officers are out to
help the public, they're also likely to have sympathy for shooting
victims. The result can be a conviction on lesser charges.
Cooperman, 74, has experience trying high-profile police cases.
In 1986, he presided over the trial of officers accused of
torturing a teenage drug suspect with a stun gun. The officers were
convicted and sentenced to six years in prison. He has also
presided over trials where police were the victims.
Oliver and Isnora face up to 25 years in prison if convicted;
Cooper faces up to a year on the lesser endangerment count.
Michael Palladino, president of the Detectives' Endowment
Association, said negative pretrial publicity prompted the
detectives to ask for a bench trial. "The jury pool was
poisoned," he said.
He cited an advertising campaign featuring Bell's fiancee as a
model for Rocawear, a clothing line co-founded by hip-hop mogul
Jay-Z, that began running just days before the trial. Palladino
said it was a clear attempt to manipulate the public; Guzman's
lawyer, Rubenstein, said it had nothing to do with the trial but
refused to say how much she was paid.
The detectives' union has argued that the officers were just
doing their jobs.
"I have said from the very beginning the shooting was tragic,"
Palladino said. "But they didn't act with criminality in their
hearts and in their minds, and I think the proper arena for this is
civil court."
The trial isn't expected to cause the kind of widespread outrage
that occurred after the 1999 killing of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed
African immigrant hit by 19 of the 41 shots fired by police in the
Bronx. Many New Yorkers, especially blacks, felt then-Mayor Rudy
Giulani wasn't compassionate enough about the Diallo case, and said
that shooting spotlighted racist police practices. Thousands
marched in protest after the officers were acquitted.
In contrast, current Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in the days
after Bell's death that he felt the shooting was "excessive." He
was hailed by residents but criticized by law enforcement for
speaking out before the facts were in.
"The thing that's missing in this case is that level of vitriol
for City Hall," O'Donnell said. "The mayor and the police
commissioner have credibility in the city, specifically in the
black community."
Plus, while Bell and his friends were black, the officers
involved are Hispanic, black and white.
"The police department is way more diverse now," O'Donnell
said. "The old story of a bunch of white cops in an all-white
department completely insensitive to the city is not true today."
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