The Sean Bell shooting incident took place in the New York City borough of Queens on November 25, 2006 in which an African-American man was shot and killed and two others wounded by plainclothes New York Police Department detectives (two of whom were themselves African-American) in a hail of 50 bullets. The incident sparked fierce criticism of the police from the public …. Three of the five detectives involved in the shooting went to trial on charges ranging from manslaughter to reckless endangerment, but were found not guilty.
This looks bad.
I’m not saying the officers are guilty of murder.
But it looks very, very bad. I don’t blame people for being angry. Firing 50 shots at an unarmed man …
The night of the shooting, Bell was at his bachelor party …
… Fearing a shooting may occur, the detective followed the men to their car while alerting his backup team, prompting the team to confront Bell and his companions before they could leave the scene. The undercover officer ordered Bell to raise his hands after getting in his car. Instead, Bell accelerated the car and hit an unmarked police minivan. A toxicology report reportedly showed that he was legally intoxicated at the time of the shooting. …
photo – Sean Bell, his former fiancee Nicole Paultre Bell, and their daughter.
Rick McCharles 
I don’t consider a man driving a car & reportedly striking an officer ‘unarmed’. Nor, should cops have considered him ‘unarmed’ if they overheard him in a discussion with his friends about getting a gun as a result of arguing in a club.
There are two points I think are important:
1-Bell & friends may have thought they were getting car jacked
2-The officers may have thought Bell was armed (based on overhearing their discussion), and considered driving the car at one of them an attack.
How could this have been avoided? Bell & friends, & people like them should not think it’s okay to openly discuss getting guns as they walk out of a club after an argument. Sean Bell would still be alive like the other black men who left the club that night & didn’t talk about getting guns.
All good points.
It looks a lot worse than it was. Perhaps if I was one of the cops I would have fired as well.
I’d like to think I would not have had to shoot more than a few bullets, though.