I wanted to lay back for a second and just marinate on this verdict before commenting. Like a lot of black New Yorkers, my visceral reaction to these cats getting off was horror. Ask me to pick sides between the cops and a black dude they killed at his bachelor party, you can guess which way I'm going. But then I started thinking.
First, I want to put what I'm saying in context. Dig this piece from the Times today which basically concludes that black New Yorkers don't see this thing through the same lense that they saw Diallo, Louima, Dorismond etc.
In Harlem, Willie Rainey, 60, a Vietnam veteran and retired airport worker, said that he believed the detectives should have been found guilty, but that he saw the case through a prism not of race, but of police conduct. “It’s a lack of police training,” Mr. Rainey said. “It’s not about race when you have black killing black. We overplay the black card as an issue.”
And further down:
But even as some condemned the behavior of the police, other black men and women interviewed praised Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.
“He’s got people who are at least willing to communicate with the black community,” said Salaam Ismail, 50, a youth coordinator, standing outside the Harlem headquarters of Mr. Sharpton’s National Action Network on Friday. “The mayor has done a lot of pre-emptive strikes with that kind of stuff, meeting with community leaders.”
On Nov. 27, 2006, two days after Mr. Bell was killed, the mayor convened a private meeting of black religious leaders and elected officials at City Hall. One of those at the meeting was the city’s police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, who a month after the shooting set up a panel to review the rules and tactics of undercover operations in response to the Bell case.
A lot of this summed up how I felt about this case. We tend to lump all instances of cops shooting innocent black folks into the same ball. But I think it's smart to unpack this stuff and examine each case and what it means.
Louima and Diallo just speak for themselves. I think what pissed so many people off about Diallo is that the guy was literally just standing there. There was no confrontation. He was just shot for being a black guy standing in a doorway. The Dorismond case was arguably worse, given Guiliani's fanning of the flames. A cop was essentially attempting to entrap Dorismond and ended up killing him. Worse still Guiliani--being the ugly fascist he is--released the dude's juvie record and claimed he "was no altar boy." In fact Dorismond literally was an altar boy and went to the same Catholic school as Guiliani.
I make no brief for the cops in the Sean Bell case here, but we have to acknowledge that, as tragic this was, as stupid and incredibly incompetent as the cops behaved, this isn't the same town, and this isn't the same sort of incident. But that doesn't mean that there is no price to be paid. I just wonder--as the judge argued--whether the court was the place to deal with that. I think these dudes should never walk the streets as police officers again--particularly the two fired the most shots at the car. I don't trust them to protect or serve my son. I think there should be a very public apology by each of them to Bell's family and specifically to his fiancee and daughter. I think the city should take care of Bell's fiancee and daughter, at the very least, until the girl completes college--paid for by the city. There was an incredible level of gross incompetence here--but I'm just not sure these dudes should have gone to jail.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
"We tend to lump all instances of cops shooting innocent black folks into the same ball. But I think it's smart to unpack this stuff and examine each case and what it means."
I disagree.
By trying to put each case into context, we actually lose the proper social context these shootings belong in.
Look at the case of other shooting on Blooberg's watch -
1. grandmother Alberta Spruill suffered from a heart attack because the cops smashed into her house, tossed in a flash grenade, and handcuffed her face down
2. Timothy Stansbury Jr, and an unarmed teenager was shot on his rooftop by a cop who was stalking the projects with his gun drawn.
We live in a city where Black communities are aggressively policed, and officers are immune from prosecution. It's systematic racism. That's the proper context.
I really, really think you're wrong on this one Ta-Nehisi. They (the cops) completely and totally f--ked up and murdered an innocent man. For no good reason. Its a complete and total case of excessive force that ended in an innocent man being killed and a family forever broken apart. Those cops should be in jail. It does hurt that its a black man who was killed, but even if the victim was Asian, or Latino, or white, or whatever, I would STILL want these cops off the streets and in jail.
I am completey torn about the case. I was not surprised at all that the cops were acquitted. Blacks in New York city (and surrounding boroughs) are second class citizens. I don't understand why the so-called leaders and the mayor was asking for no violence. Blacks already know that if they get out of line they will be killed.
Part of me asks why was Sean Bell out that late at night if he was getting married the next day. Why did his friends let him drive when he was intoxicated? I am not justifying what the cops did but I am not quick to believe what Al Sharpton says. I want to see the facts for myself.
"But I think it's smart to unpack this stuff and examine each case and what it means."
Thoughtful unpacking entails recognizing how racism informs how black and brown people undervalue their own and their reflections' lives.
I thought about this thread all day today... here's what I got:
Cops shoot a black guy just out having a good time: Black community sees this as another example of... ?
White female honor student shot by thug during a car jacking: Black community sees this as another example of... ?
I don't think there is a right answer to these questions. I think at the moment that any of these shooters pulled the trigger, they were acting as themselves, not as representatives of a race. Maybe some of them were motivated in some way by racial perspectives, maybe not. It's hard to know what is in someone's soul, let alone after the fact.
But if it's hard to know what's in someone's soul, then it's pretty impossible to believe that there's a bunch of someones and based on their race/gender/orientation/whatever they all have the same thing in their soul. I don't see that.
So I say everybody who shoots anybody in these kinds of situations is in the same group - "killed someone innocent". That's as far as I go. There is no group in the world that doesn’t have members in that category.
Wow. My mother just retired after 25 years as a probation officer. My mother hates the police force and the criminal justice system. The police force is trained to profile black communites and people. They devalue the people, their property and their lives. I wonder if the police actually care about the welfare of those in the community.
NYPD has been known to abuse their power. They often incite incidents from what I have heard and observed. My sister's boyfriend just got arrested for endangering a police officer, resisting arrest and some other dumb charge. Why did it come to that? He was pulled over one night by the police who were doing a sting operation. He could not find his wallet to present I.D. because it dropped out of his pocket in the car (he later found it under the seat). The three police officer told him to get out of the car and slammed him against the car while they searched him and the car. It was two on one and he was in an uncomfortable position. When he tried to straighten up, one of the officers pushed him on the ground. The police officer claimed that he was trying to "attack" him. Then they arrested him for endangering a police officer, some other non-sense because he told the police that he was doing anything wrong and resisting arrest. He is 19 years old and was taken down to the precinct. He is on probation. They filed a police misconduct complaint but it was dismissed. He is a good kid and I know this for a fact. The police profile and incite incidents. What happens now is that the community becomes hostile towards police and other law enforcement.
The black community has a deeply rooted hostility to the police in many communities. So many are reluctant to call the police or help the police solve crimes. There is a "no snitching" culture. Incidents like these only complicates that hostility and distrust. This has set up a dangerous situation.
What happened to Sean Bell will unfortunately happen again.
Crown Heights, Brooklyn is having a bit of unrest now too between the hasitic jews and black community.