January 8, 2009
Grand jury hears testimony in Sean Bell case
On crutches and in a wheelchair, two men seriously injured in a 50-shot police barrage that killed their unarmed friend appeared before a grand jury on Friday to give their version of the high-profile incident.
"I got to tell the truth," said one of the men, Joseph Guzman, as he left the closed-door session in a wheelchair. "We'd been waiting for this for a long time."
Guzman, 31, and Trent Benefield, 23, who was on crutches, were the first of several key witnesses slated to testify as the grand jury's investigation of the shooting, which began in January, draws to a close.
Beginning Monday, the five shooters are expected to be called in ascending order based on the number of shots they fired: Paul Headley, who shot one round; Michael Cary, three; Marc Cooper, four; Gescard Isnora, 11; and Michael Oliver, 31.
The officers' testimony should take an entire week, meaning that a vote on whether they should face criminal charges could come sometime in mid-March, lawyers said.
The Queens district attorney's office declined on Friday to discuss the case.
Guzman, Benefield and Bell's fiance, Nicole Paultre Bell, appeared on the steps of a Queens courthouse with the Rev. Al Sharpton before heading to a nearby office building where they testified about the fatal shooting of Sean Bell on Nov. 25, 2006 _ a case that sparked community outrage and raised questions about police tactics. The men claim the five officers never identified themselves as police before opening fire.
"We waited through winter to be able to tell the truth," Sharpton said.
Sharpton led a prayer asking "for strength and clarity of mind" for the witnesses as they came forward "to tell the truth." Bell's fiance wore a button with a photo of the couple and their children; her lawyer said she was asked to remove it before testifying that she was the owner of the car Bell died in.
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.
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.
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.
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