
Rev. Al Sharpton has been arrested at the Brooklyn Bridge as he and hundreds others protested the acquittal of the three police officers involved in the 50-bullet shooting of Sean Bell the day before his wedding.
The officers claimed they thought Bell was shooting at them outside the Queens stripclub, but it was later discovered Bell was unarmed.
Sharpton, Bell’s friends Trent Benefield and Joseph Guzman who were also wounded that night, and Bell’s fiancee, Nicole Paultre Bell, were arrested today along with sevon or eight others in the largest demonstration so far calling for a federal investigation into the November 2006 shooting.
Protesters gathered Wednesday in “pray ins” at six locations in New York City led by Hazel Dukes, the former state NAACP leader .
In Brooklyn, Rev. Herbert Daughtry and City Councilman Charles Barron (D-Brooklyn), were arrested along with about 25 others who were sitting in the street at the Brooklyn entrance to the Manhattan Bridge.
The group from Brooklyn had planned to march across the bridge toward Manhattan and meet up with a group, led by the Rev. Al Sharpton, marching from One Police Plaza to the famous span.
“As long as they [police] are respectful, we will be respectful,” Dukes said. “If they are not respectful, we still will be respectful.”
Protesters gathered at 3 p.m. at the following locations: 125th Street and Third Avenue; Park Avenue and 34th Street; 60th Street and Third Avenue; Varick and Houston streets; at House of the Lord Pentecostal Church, 415 Atlantic Ave., Brooklyn; and police headquarters at One Police Plaza.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently met with church and civic leaders to urge for peaceful demonstrations.
Queens State Supreme Court Judge Arthur Cooperman cleared detectives Michael Oliver, Gescard Isnora and Marc Cooper in the shooting of Bell and his two friends outside a Queens strip club on Nov. 25, 2006 without a jury.
Prosecutors failed, the judge said, to prove the officers had used excessive force.
Sharpton had called for acts of civil disobedience across the city. Several other demonstrators have been arrested as they stopped traffic at bridges and tunnels.
U.S. attorney spokesman Robert Nardoza said the case was under review, but he declined to comment further.
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