By Ivan Pereira
One of the officers who killed Sean Bell gave his account of why he and his five comrades fired 50 shots at the bridegroom and his two friends nearly five years ago outside a nightclub in South Jamaica.
Detective Gescard Isnora, who along with his partner Officer Michael Carey, is facing expulsion from the force, testified Oct. 26 during the department’s disciplinary hearings into the Nov. 25, 2006, shooting.
Isnora, who fired 11 shots, reiterated that even though Bell, 23, and his friends Trent Benefield and Joseph Guzman were not armed, he heard Guzman say he was going to get a gun during a heated argument with another bar patron outside the Kalua Cabaret in Jamaica, the Associated Press reported.
“It’s not something you say playfully or in a joking manner,” Isnora said, according to the AP. “If you say it, you’re going to do it.”
Isnora and his undercover team were at the strip club investigating drug and prostitution rings that were reportedly operating at the place. Bell was celebrating his bachelor party with friends and family that night and was set to get married to his longtime girlfriend Nicole Paultre-Bell on the morning of the shooting.
Isnora said he called for backup after hearing the argument and approached Bell, Benefield and Guzman at the corner of Liverpool Street and 94th Avenue, where Bell’s car was parked, and was joined by his fellow officers who were in an unmarked police van, according to the AP.
The detective testified that he identified himself as a police officer before Bell rammed his car into the van, which is when he and his partners opened fire, killing the bridegroom instantly and seriously injuring his two friends.
“Me firing my weapon, that was the last thing I wanted to do,” Isnora testified.
Isnora; Detective Michael Oliver, who fired 31 shots and reloaded; and Detective Marc Cooper, who fired four shots, were indicted on manslaughter and reckless endangerment charges but were acquitted in a bench trial in 2008 in Queens Supreme Court. Carey, who fired three shots, and Detective Paul Headley, who fired once, were not criminally charged, but Carey did testify on behalf of the defense.
Guzman and Benefield testified during the criminal trial that they never heard Isnora make any indication that he was an officer before the shooting started.
None of the officers who were on trial in Queens took the stand in their own defense.
Headley has left the NYPD while Oliver and Cooper are working on modified duty and are negotiating plea deals with the department in their disciplinary actions, the Detectives Endowment Association said.
The disciplinary hearing was set to this week and once it ends, the administrative judge will make a recommendation to the police commissioner, who will ultimately decide whether or not the two officers will be removed from the force, an NYPD spokesman said.
The NYPD settled last year with Paultre-Bell, the mother of the slain bridegroom’s two daughters, Guzman and Benefield in the wrongful death lawsuit they filed against the department and paid the three a total of $3.25 million in damages.
Reach reporter Ivan Pereira by e-mail at ipereira@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4546.
