Police Witnesses Describe Confusion After Bell Slaying
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One undercover detective made a disjointed 911 call after the fatal gunfire erupted. Once the street went quiet, two other detectives claimed they couldn’t remember how many shots they’d fired. Another went totally blank — even though he’d squeezed off 31 rounds.
The confusion was recounted yesterday in police testimony at the trial of three officers charged in the killing of an unarmed groom-to-be in a hail of 50 police bullets fired toward his car.
Prosecutors played a tape of a 911 call made by Detective Hispolito Sanchez, a member of an undercover team dispatched to investigate reports of prostitution at a Queens strip club where Sean Bell was partying with friends in the wee hours of November 25, 2006 — Bell’s wedding day.
Detective Sanchez, 36, testified that though he didn’t see the shooting outside the club, he heard yelling — including “commands” — followed by a crash and then gunfire. While ducking down, he called 911 for help, but had trouble giving the operator his location or a clear sense of what was happening.
“We’ve got two perps shot,” he finally said at one point on the tape.
Another witness, Lieutenant Michael Wheeler, described responding to the emergency call and having two passengers in Bell’s car, both seriously wounded, handcuffed as a precaution.
After ordering undercover Detective Marc Cooper to lower his weapon, the shooter of four rounds confided that “he did fire his weapon, but he did not know how many times,” Mr. Wheeler said.
Gescard Isnora — 11 rounds fired — said the same thing. With the 31-shot officer, Detective Michael Oliver, “I asked him if he fired his weapon,” Mr. Wheeler said, “and he said he didn’t remember.”
Detectives Oliver and Isnora face manslaughter charges at the closely watched case, now in its second week.
Detective Cooper is charged with reckless endangerment.
Prosecutors have portrayed the shooters as trigger-happy and poorly supervised.
The defense contends the officers had witnessed Bell and his friends trade insults with a man who appeared to be armed, and became convinced they were going to Bell’s car to get a gun.
