This week, New York City agreed to settle a civil suit in the shooting of Sean Bell -- an unarmed 23-year-old man killed outside a strip club by police in 2006 -- for $7 million. According to The New York Times story, the negotiations lasted days, and most of the money will go to Bell's two children and another victim in the shooting, Joseph Guzman.
That the city settled is not surprising, and, in retrospect, it shouldn't have been surprising when the officers were found not guilty in a criminal trial in 2008. A judge found the officers' version of events more "credible," which speaks to the assumptions and biases everyone brings into a courtroom -- even judges. But one thing the Times story notes, and we should remember, is that the officers still face administrative charges. Though the results from an administrative trial are unlikely to be satisfying, they could reveal procedural errors that could be addressed by the department. (The shooting happened after an undercover operation in a strip club, and the investigation raised questions as to whether those officers had drunk alcohol and followed procedure in pursuing Bell outside the club.)
But in the Times story, Michael J. Palladino, the president of the Detectives Endowment Association, the detectives' union, doubles down in defending the officers in talking about the settlement.
“I think there is something seriously wrong with the entire picture,” Mr. Palladino said, “because if you take a look at the situation in its entirety, it's that the police were there performing their lawful duty; Bell was intoxicated and he tried to run the police down.”
“If you take a look at the whole situation,” he added, “the settlement is absurd, for that amount of money, when Bell was responsible for the entire incident.”
Obviously, it's his job to defend the officers, but he needn't do so in such vociferous terms. There is a way to deny their culpability more subtly, without blaming an innocent dead man for the whole thing. This type of statement is what hardens feelings toward police departments. Officers have a tendency to circle the wagons beyond all reason.
-- Monica Potts
