Seek civil rights charges against Bell detectives

Several top federal officials pledged to develop a “strategy” in response to the acquittal of three police detectives in the shooting trial of the slain groom-to-be Sean Bell.
“I’m going back to work with our committee. We have our lawyers here, and we are going to be putting together the federal strategy,” said Congressmember John Conyers, who chairs the powerful Judiciary Committee in the House of Representatives. “This is important.”
In a private meeting with Bell’s family, friends and fianc/e on Monday, April 28, politicians were also scheduled to discuss possible legislation to reform the justice system, their spokespersons said.
“We want to make sure that justice is served,” Conyers said, adding, “These kinds of tragedies have to end in this country.
That strategy could include pushing for a federal case against the officers for violating Bell’s civil rights, even though several lawyers have already speculated in published reports that intervention by the federal government would be unlikely in part because of the prosecutorial burden to prove criminal intent or excessiveness by the officers.
In addition, the Detectives Endowment Association, the union representing the police officers involved in the shooting, has requested a meeting with Conyers in order to tell their side, according to published reports.
Still Bell family supporters including Reverend Al Sharpton vowed not to give up the fight.
“We are the shot, not the shooters. We are just trying to stop the next gun from going off immorally, illegally and unethically,” Sharpton said during the press conference at Congressmember Gregory Meeks’ Jamaica office.
Sharpton pointed to the federal case brought against two police officers involved in the beating of black motorist Rodney King. After four white cops were acquitted on charges of assault with a deadly weapon, excessive use of force as a police officer, filing a false report and acting as an accessory after the fact by a California court in 1992, the following year two of the officers were convicted and sentenced to 30 months behind bars for conspiracy to violate King’s civil rights.
“It is the same media that says to us that it is unlikely to get federal intervention for Bell said that it is unlikely to get federal intervention for Rodney King, who was not even shot and who was speeding,” Sharpton said.
Politicians also mentioned cases of Abner Louima and former police officer Francis Livoti, who was convicted on a federal civil rights violation charge in the choking death of a 29-year-old security guard in the Bronx. Police officer Justin Volpe, who was convicted of brutalizing Louima in Brooklyn, was sentenced to 30 years behind bars.
However civil rights violations charges were never brought in another notable New York case - that of unarmed immigrant Amadou Diallo, who was killed in a hail of 41 bullets fired by four police officers in the Bronx.
Conyers said that he had spoken to the U.S. Attorney General in regards to the Bell case and that the agency would be conducting its own investigation of what went on one block from Club Kalua in South Jamaica on November 25, 2006.
Following the press conference, officials, along with the Bell’s parents, fianc/e Nicole Paultre-Bell and pals Trent Benefield and Joseph Guzman, toured the shooting site on nearby Liverpool Street and walked past the strip club where Bell’s buddies had brought him for his bachelor party.
The politicians present included local elected officials, Comptroller Bill Thompson, Borough President Helen Marshall and State Senator Malcolm Smith and several of Conyers’ fellow Congressmembers - Charles Rangel, Jerrold Nadler, Joseph Crowley and Meeks, whose district includes the South Jamaica street where Bell was killed.
“I think it was very important,” said Meeks of the meeting. “It showed that legislative members of Congress are focused on getting the Justice Department to do a thorough investigation into this matter.”
According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) website, those convicted of conspiracy to commit civil rights violations and deprivation of civil rights, which result in death, could be sentenced to as much as life in prison or the death penalty. The FBI touts itself as the lead agency in prosecuting federal civil rights violations.
In addition to a possible federal case, relatives of Bell, Benefield and Guzman have filed civil suits against the city.