William Bell outside the court on Monday.
William Bell, the father of Sean Bell, testified this morning about the final night he spent with his son. The testimony, on the second day of the trial of three New York City police detectives charged in the killing of Sean Bell, was striking because of the short amount of time that passed — about an hour — between the last time the father saw his son alive and the son’s death.
Early on Nov. 25, 2006, detectives fatally shot Sean Bell, 23, near a strip club in Queens, hours before he was to marry his fiancée. The officers said they believed the younger Mr. Bell and his friends were going to retrieve a gun and shoot at another group at the club.
When Mr. Bell seemed to try to flee or ram the officers with his car, the police said, the officers opened fire, killing him and wounding the two friends in a barrage of 50 bullets. The officers said they believed they were being fired upon, but no gun was found in the car. Detectives Michael Oliver and Gescard F. Isnora face manslaughter charges, and a third detective, Marc Cooper, is charged with reckless endangerment.
William Bell had joined his son at the strip club, Club Kalua, for the bachelor party, and left around 3 a.m., he testified under questioning from Charles A. Testagrossa, an assistant district attorney. Sean Bell was killed around 4:15 a.m.
The father went back to the family’s home in Far Rockaway, Queens, around 3:30 a.m., but received a call a short while telling him that his son was at Jamaica Hospital Medical Center. He quickly left for the hospital, arriving around 5 a.m. It was not until six hours later that he finally saw his son — dead — in the hospital morgue.
Under questioning from Anthony L. Ricco, a lawyer for Detective Isnora, Mr. Bell said he went to the club to keep his son company at his bachelor party, and that it was not a place he would usually go to.
Asked if he had planned to leave quickly, William Bell replied: “I didn’t leave as fast as I thought I would. I was spending time with him.”
Mr. Ricco asked William Bell if, upon parting ways with his son, he had thought it might be the last time he’d ever see him.
“No, you never think that,” the father said.
CityRoom.com
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/26/sean-bells-father-recalls-fatal-night-at-club/?hp
