I don’t normally share my opinions on news or politics. Sports is where it’s at for me. However, when a story with such powerful magnitude, like the recent, seemingly unprovoked, shooting of 23-year-old Sean Bell, the day he was to be wed to the mother of his children, by the New York City Police Department, I take notice.
According to police reports, the officers were patrolling a New York City club as part of an undercover sting operation looking for possible narcotics, weapons and prostitution violations. As Bell and four of his friends went to his car, he was approached by the officers. Then, according to a New York Times editorial, an undercover detective said he heard one of the men say they were going to get a gun. The detective then made his presence and true identity known to the men by flashing his weapon. Obviously, the men panicked, gunning the car’s engine and hitting one of the officers in the shin.
This is where it gets bad.
Five officers surrounding the scene opened fire on the car and its occupants. In total, the police fired 50 rounds into the car, killing Bell and injuring two of the other men. Published photos of the vehicle show it to be completely riddled with bullets, evidence of a blatant overuse of force on the part of the NYPD.
Community leaders, as well as Reverend Al Sharpton, have been vocal in calling for an explanation from NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly, as well as from New York City Mayor, Michael Bloomberg.
Frustratingly, this kind of senseless abuse of power by those sworn to protect and serve us as citizens has not been limited to larger cities. In fact, a similar incident occurred just weeks earlier right here in our own backyard.
On Nov. 14, 19-year-old Eugene resident Ryan Salisbury was fatally injured when members of the Eugene Police Department emptied several shots outside of the home where he and his family resided. Salisbury had ransacked the house and was brandishing a knife when officers decided lethal force was necessary. However, the EPD did do one thing members of the NYPD failed to do: They tried other methods of controlling Salisbury before deciding to go for their guns. Eugene’s police first tried firing bean-bags at the teen, but the less-than-lethal rounds had little to no impact, the Register-Guard reported. It was after the responsible implementation of non-lethal force that the EPD decided that they needed to escalate their response to the situation.
The NYPD needs to take a lesson from their counterparts in the Northwest and learn to employ other methods before unholstering their deadly weapons. When a man sees another man aim a gun at his face, the natural reaction is going to be to get out of the way as fast as possible. In the case of Sean Bell and the NYPD the best way to get out of the way was to jam on the gas and book it. Unfortunately for Bell, the officers were in the way of his car and that made it seem as if he were threatening them. How do you expect someone to react to the brandishing of a firearm by an out-of-uniform cop?
When the dust settled, the NYPD concluded that none of the men were armed and all of the bullets were for naught. Sadly, these results are not surprising.
What we can learn from both incidents is this: Lethal force is never the correct first solution to diffusing a situation. Flashing the gun at Bell was unquestionably the wrong thing to do. I can understand that the officers in New York may have fired out of fear for their own safety, but if you’ve decided that force is a necessary option, why not start with a lower degree of force. For instance, these men were in a car, why not, I don’t know, aim for the tires? If they stop the car from getting away, there’s probably a really good chance the men are not going to escape. If that doesn’t work, aim for the knees. These officers should have done anything and everything in their power to not have to resort to killing these men. Clearly, that was not the case. They shot first, and only later are questions being asked, after it’s far too late for Bell, his former wife to be and his children.
If incidents like this do not stop occurring, people everywhere are going to begin to see the police as an enemy and not as a force provided to help protect them. Actions like those of the NYPD in regards to the late Sean Bell only serve to reinforce negative stereotypes of the police force in our society. It is no wonder that people are scared of police officers with a precedent like this to govern their perception.