U.S. & World

NEW YORK (CBS News) ― As he faced a barrage of 50 police bullets, Trent Benefield feared he would never emerge alive.

"Thought I was going to die," he said shortly before he was released from a Queens hospital.

Showing bullet wounds and stitches from surgery that left a rod in one of his legs, Benefield pleaded for a fair resolution to the case, which has sparked an outpouring of complaints about police conduct.

Now under investigation, the shooting left an unarmed man, Sean Bell, dead on his wedding day. It seriously wounded two of his friends, including Benefield. They also were unarmed.

"One of my friends is dead; another one is shot up. I'm shot up. We need justice," Benefield told the television station in his room at Mary Immaculate Hospital. "I don't want anyone to go through this."

After leaving the hospital Tuesday, Benefield joined his attorney, Sanford Rubenstein, and relatives at the midtown Manhattan offices of the Service Employees International Union Local 1199. There, the Rev. Al Sharpton had convened a meeting attended by political, religious, labor and community leaders.

"I'd like to say I thank Al Sharpton and the community for sticking by me," Benefield said as he sat in a wheelchair, flanked by his mother, pregnant fiancee and lawyer.

Benefield has disputed the police version of the Nov. 25 shooting. He didn't address the investigation Tuesday evening, but Sharpton and other activists announced a mass march, dubbed Shopping for Justice. It is set for noon on Dec. 16. in midtown Manhattan.

"Collectively, we are tired of seeing these abuses," Sharpton, who has spoken for the families of Bell and his fiancee, Nicole Paultre, said after the meeting. "It will be a peaceful march, it will be a silent march, but we expect to bring out hundreds of people in the middle of that shopping district to say, during shopping time, 'We cannot have business as usual.' "

Meanwhile, the December 12th Movement, a human-rights group, has planned a protest Wednesday afternoon outside police headquarters.

Benefield, 23, and Joseph Guzman, 31, were badly wounded in the shooting, which occurred outside a Queens strip club as they sat in Bell's car. They had been at a bachelor party for Bell, 23, who was to marry his high school sweetheart later that day.

"He was a very good man. I just feel for his family, his kids, Nicole," Benefield told New York 1. Bell and his fiancée had two daughters, a 3-year-old and a 5-month-old.

Guzman remains hospitalized.

"At this point, he's out of danger. But at the same time, he's in a great amount of pain," said Imam Charles Bilal, a spokesman for Guzman's family.

Police have said that five undercover detectives and officers investigating the strip club for prostitution and drugs fired a total 50 shots outside the strip club, Kalua.

The first undercover detective to open fire has insisted, through his lawyer, that he believed Guzman was pulling a gun when he opened fire on the car. No gun was found.

That detective and other witnesses also have said there was a fourth man, possibly armed, in or near the car who escaped on foot. Benefield, Guzman and other members of Bell's bachelor party have denied it.

Before the shooting, after the undercover detective followed the three men to their car, Bell's vehicle hit one officer and an unmarked police car.

The two survivors, their lawyer said, have told prosecutors that none of the officers identified themselves as police before opening fire. The first detective who started shooting has disputed their account, through his attorney.

The shooting has generated widespread outrage, especially among black New Yorkers. The victims were all black; two of the officers were black, two were white and one was Hispanic.

The Rev. Calvin Butts of the Abyssinian Baptist Church, who attended Tuesday's meeting and supports the Shopping for Justice march, went a step further and suggested boycotting retailers. He also said a call for the resignation of police Commissioner Ray Kelly was a "strong possibility."

"The changes that have to be made have to be systemic, and many believe that starts at the top, that means Kelly," said Butts, who recently complained of mistreatment by police during a traffic stop.

Police representatives said Kelly had no immediate response to Butts' call for his resignation.

Others who attended the meeting included state Sen. Malcolm A. Smith and City Councilmen Charles Barron and John Liu.

Liu, who said complaints to his office about police have increased in recent years, said he attended the meeting because Bell's killing was "really the straw that broke the camel's back."

"It's not just about Sean Bell," Liu, whose district includes parts of Queens, said after the meeting. "It's an accumulation of frustration felt throughout many communities that people are not being given their due process and that they're not being heard and not even being respected.

"Real change is absolutely necessary here," Liu continued. "People are beyond the tipping point."

Liu stopped short of calling for Kelly's resignation, saying, "The investigation is being conducted."

Meanwhile, the New York Civil Liberties Union on Tuesday called on the City Council to form an independent board to assess all police shootings and recommend reforms in training and tactics.

The Bell shooting "has highlighted the lack of independent public information about police shootings," the group wrote in a letter to council leaders.

The chief police spokesman, Paul Browne, accused the NYCLU of trying to "politicize the process" of reviewing such incidents.

The five officers involved in the shooting have been put on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of a grand jury investigation by the Queens district attorney's office.

(© 2006 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)