New York to Pay $7 Million in Police Shooting Case(Sean Bell)

[RamboLiberal]

Source: NY Times

Closing a key chapter in one of the most controversial police shootings in recent memory, New York City agreed on Tuesday to pay more than $7 million to settle a federal lawsuit filed by the family and two friends of Sean Bell, a 23-year-old black man who was fatally shot by the police in 2006 on what would have been his wedding day.

The decision by the city came after two days of intense negotiations in Federal District Court in Brooklyn. The children whom Mr. Bell had with his fiancée, Nicole Paultre Bell, will receive $3.25 million, and two friends of Mr. Bell’s who were injured in the episode will also receive payments, with Joseph Guzman getting $3 million, and Trent Benefield $900,000.

The lawsuit, filed in 2007, accused the police of wrongful death, negligence, assault and civil rights violations. But it had repeatedly stalled as the state and federal governments and city police officials investigated the shooting.

The case, whose settlement ranks among the biggest in recent years involving the city’s police, set off a raw debate over the use of deadly force and prompted the city to change some of its policing procedures. Those include alcohol testing for officers in any shooting in which someone is injured, as well as improved firearms training.


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/28/nyregion/28bell.html?_r=1&hp

[alp227]

1. Price fits the crime (why did they have to shoot him & friends 50 times??)

Good to see some closure for Bell's family.

[Lurks Often]

2. Current use of force training is to

shoot until the threat stops, combine that with 5 officers all firing and I doubt the shooting took more then 15 seconds or so.

Having had similar use of force training (a course taught by a police officer to a class composed of both civilian and law enforcement personal) I can understand how it might happen without necessarily condoning it (I would want to see the entire report of the incident).

[davepc]

3. Their fire was wild and some of it innacurate.

They found bullets in a near by El stop half a block away from the shooting location. Surveillance video showed that same bullets narrowly missed hitting civilians in the train station.

This is with the the Police being the only people doing any shooting. They weren't taking any incoming fire. At least one of the cops discharged two full magazines.

Widely hosing down a neighborhood to stop a threat when no threat exists is a flimsy excuse.

[Lurks Often]

4. Never said they were good shots,

the vast majority of police officers are average shots at best.

I merely explained why 50 rounds might be fired, I never said if it was justified or not and I won't make such a judgment based on newspaper reports.