COOL V - PRESENTS POLOTRIX 101 NYC PLANS TO SETTLE SEAN BELL CASE (AS IF THAT WAS ROCKET SCIENCE THAT IT WQAS A SAVAGE KILLING)

IS THIS JUSTICE? SEAN BELL FAMILY WINS LAWSUIT BUT AT WHAT COST?
The family of Sean Bell gathered, as they had done on three previous occasions, to mark a birthday never reached.

Kirsten Luce for The New York Times

Mr. Bell was killed as he left his bachelor party in the early morning of Nov. 25, 2006, when undercover officers fired more than 50 bullets at the car he was driving after the vehicle struck a detective on the leg. Two friends in the car, Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield, were also shot by the officers, who said they had believed that one of the men in the car had a gun. But none of the three men were armed.

Three of the officers were acquitted of manslaughter and reckless endangerment charges in State Supreme Court in Queens in 2008. In February, the Justice Department declined to bring civil rights charges against the officers.

The city had sought to continue to delay the suit pending an internal police investigation into the officers’ actions, but on Tuesday Judge Sterling Johnson Jr. of United States District Court in Brooklyn ruled against maintaining the stay. “I’m unimpressed,” Judge Johnson told the group of eight lawyers representing the two sides. “I am lifting the stay, and we will proceed.”

A conference to discuss possible settlements was scheduled for July 20.

After the hearing, the family left the courthouse to prepare for the street renaming ceremony. “It’s a bittersweet feeling,” said Nicole Paultre Bell, Mr. Bell’s fiancée, who legally took his last name after his death. “We need some type of justice. Everywhere we’ve turned it’s been denied.”

BROUGHT TO YOU BY NY TIMES SEE ARTICLE "HERE"