Mar 5, 2007 8:53 am US/Eastern
Sean Bell Grand Jury Hears From NYPD Officers
QUEENS (CBS) ―
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Sean Bell, who was shot and killed in a barrage of 50 NYPD bullets in November 2006, is pictured here with his fiancee, Nicole Paultre, and their child. They were to be married hours after the shooting.
CBS
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Sean Bell was killed by a hail of police gunfire in the early morning hours of Nov. 25 outside a Jamaica nightclub.
CBS
The first of five police officers appeared Monday before a Queens grand jury hearing evidence in the 50-shot fusillade that killed an unarmed man on his wedding day.
Detective Paul Headley arrived in the company of Mike Palladino, president of the Detectives Endowment Association.
"This is a very complicated case," Palladino told reporters before Headley headed into an office building to testify. "We asked the grand jury to do a thorough investigation. I don't think they can do a thorough investigation or make an informed decision without hearing from the officers involved in the case."
Headley, dressed in a dark suit, did not speak to reporters.
Headley and the four other officers were expected to be called in ascending order, based on the number of bullets they fired: Headley fired one round; Michael Cary, three; Marc Cooper, four; Gescard Isnora, 11; and Michael Oliver, 31.
The officers' testimony is expected to take the entire week, meaning that a vote on whether or not they should face criminal
charges could come sometime in mid-March, lawyers said.
"I hope the grand jurors see these officers for who and what they are," said Palladino, adding that "the action they took that night were in performance of their duty and were acting in good faith."
Last week, the grand jury heard accounts from the two surviving victims -- Joseph Guzman, 31, and Trent Benefield, 23 -- one in a wheelchair and one on crutches, making plain the extent of their injuries.
Guzman, Benefield and Sean Bell's fiance, Nicole Paultre Bell, appeared on the courthouse steps Friday with the Rev. Al S
before they testified about the fatal shooting of Bell on Nov. 25, 2006 -- a case that sparked community outrage and raised questions about police tactics. The men claim the officers never identified themselves as police before opening fire.
Bell, 23, was killed before dawn after his bachelor party at Kalua Cabaret, a topless bar in Queens where police had launched an undercover operation in response to complaints about prostitution. He was to be married later that day.
"I got to tell the truth," Guzman, 31, as he left the closed-door session in a wheelchair. "We'd been waiting for this for a long time."
The grand jury's investigation began in January.
The Queens district attorney's office has declined to discuss the case.
Union representatives and lawyers for the officers have said their clients became convinced Bell and his friends were going to retrieve a gun from a car parked around the corner after overhearing them argue with another patron.
When Isnora approached the car -- driven by Bell and carrying Benefield and Guzman -- it lurched forward and bumped him, then twice rammed into an unmarked police minivan, the NYPD said. The undercover detective has claimed through his lawyer that he spotted one of the men make a suspicious move, starting the shooting.
At least one of the officers' bullets traveled a half a city block, piercing the window at an AirTrain station and narrowly missing the head of a commuter waiting for a train.
Bell was black, as are the other shooting victims. Some of the officers are black and some are white; all have been taken off undercover duty and put on paid leave.
(© MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
CBS 2's Coverage Of The Death Of Sean Bell
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