Officers who shot Sean Bell acquitted of all charges

    

The three cops who gunned down Sean Bell on his wedding day with a 50-bullet barrage were acquitted of all charges Friday in Queens Supreme Court.

After Justice Arthur Cooperman read the verdict, Bell's fiancee, Nicole Paultre Bell, stood up and ran out of the packed courtroom in tears.

Bell's family and a crowd of supporters were furious at Cooperman's verdict, which closed the book on a closely watched eight-week trial during which NYPD procedures were put under the microscope and the reputations of Bell and his two wounded buddies were dragged through the mud.

Detectives Michael Oliver, Gescard Isnora and Marc Cooper still face departmental hearings where they could be stripped of their badges. They remain on modified duty and have surrendered their guns.

Oliver, who fired 31 times and reloaded once, and Isnora, who fired 11 times, had been charged with manslaughter, felony assault and reckless endangerment. They faced up to 25 years in prison if convicted on all charges.

Cooper, who fired four times, faced up to a year in jail if convicted of reckless endangerment.

None of the detectives testified, although their grand jury testimony was read out loud at the trial.

Sean Bell's father, William, said he would call on the feds to try the cops for violating his son's civil rights if they were acquitted.

Bell, a 23-year-old father of two, was killed on Nov. 25, 2006 near the Queens strip club where he'd just had his bachelor bash. His friends, Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield, were badly wounded when the cops opened fire on Bell's car.

Guzman, Benefield, and Bell's fiancee - Nicole Paultre Bell - were in Queens Supreme Court with the Rev. Al Sharpton when the verdict was read.

While the victims are all black, race didn't figure as prominently in the case because Cooper is also black, Isnora is half-black, and Oliver is of Lebanese descent.

Though not anticipating any violence, the NYPD has extra officers on the street in Jamaica, Queens to keep the peace.

Oliver 36, Isnora 29, and Cooper, 40, were part of an undercover police unit that was doing a prostitution sting at the Kalua Caberet in Jamaica, Queens when they tragically crossed paths with Bell and his friends.

In reaching his verdict, Cooperman had to consider two simple yet competing arguments - either the police were reckless and overreacted or the victims were acting like thugs and brought it on themselves.

Defense lawyers said the detectives fired in self-defense because they believed Guzman was reaching for a gun when Isnora stepped in front of Bell's car and declared, "Police, show your hands!"

No gun was found.

Oliver's lawyer, James Culleton, accused prosecutors of building a case on the testimony of "a parade of convicted felons, crack dealers and men who were not strangers to weapons."

Culleton charged that Guzman and Benefield, both of whom have police records, and their street thug friends framed the detectives to win their $50 million suit against the city.

Prosecutors, however, said Bell, Guzman and Benefield were the victims of poorly led, trigger-happy cops, who fired without identifying themselves first - and then came up with a shaky story about a confrontation between Bell and a mystery man outside the club to justify their excessive use of force.

"This F-Troop of a unit caused the death of an innocent man and caused the injury of two others," prosecutor Charles Testagrossa said, referring to the classic TV sitcom. "This was a slipshod operation, with no real planning."

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