50-Day Vigil Begins for Sean Bell

Absent were the television cameras, angry protesters, and booming voices of politicians and religious leaders. Present was the nucleus of grief: Sean Bell's closest friends and family members beneath umbrellas and a dark, drizzling sky.

While the city recovered from its New Year's Eve excesses, about 40 people met in front of the 103rd Precinct early yesterday morning to quietly begin a 50-day vigil to honor Bell, 23, who was shot dead by five police officers a little more than a month ago, on his wedding day.

They plan to man the vigil 24 hours a day through what may be the entire course of the grand jury testimony, which is set to begin in the first weeks of this month. Electric lamps illuminated the patch of fence where they vowed to stand beside a 12-foot banner with Bell's face and depictions of bullet holes marked one through 50, the number of times police fired at the car Bell was driving with two friends. Beneath, in bold, capital letters, the banner reads: "Never Again."

"We pray that they don't forget what happened to my son," Valerie Bell said. "It's all about being peaceful, about getting justice for my son. And make a change, changing their attitude. Everybody's job has rules and regulations; everybody's jobs have rights and wrongs. It's got to stop."

One of several lawyers representing the Bell family, Neville Mitchell, told the gathering that the police department's decision last week to give the officer who in 2004 accidentally killed Timothy Stansbury a 30-day suspension "shows that they don't even care." "As the days go along, it may become a little more difficult to do this," he said. "But we have to do this, because these folks don't care, and we're going to make them care."

The group began the vigil with a prayer, and then a song led by Mrs. Bell. Officers peered out of the front door of the precinct on P.O. Edward Byrne Avenue as she sang: "Somebody needs you my lord, somebody needs you."

The mood wavered between joy at remembering Bell — the time he and his childhood friends went to an arcade in Manhattan and his focus while playing baseball, for example — and a silent sadness. Bell's sister, Delores, 14, began the morning happily posing before a home video camera, saying, "For real, right here. That's my brother, that's my brother!" After an hour passed, she had leaned her head against Bell's image, keeping to herself.

Lazaro Hernandez, who grew up with Bell near the Van Wyck Expressway in Jamaica, Queens, came wearing a hat with Bell's name stitched on it, a T-shirt with silkscreen images of Bell, and something he recently found in his closet: Bell's old baseball jersey, still a little brown from practice.

Hours before Bell died, Mr. Hernandez, 23, said he told his friend that he was considering joining the police department after having passed the exam.

"He said go for it. He had nothing against the police," Mr. Hernandez said. "I do still want to do it, to make a difference, but I just don't know what it's about."

Mr. Neville and four other lawyers were working out a legal strategy to ensure Bell's death leads to change in the police department and city.