NEW YORK – All weekend, people have been asking me what I think about the acquittals of those three cops who shot and killed Sean Bell.

Jami Floyd gets the Last Word again.

Most of all, I feel for his parents and fiancée who sat in that courtroom, day after day, quietly hoping for justice. Then they heard the judge say the words “not guilty.”

Now, I know there has been case after sorry case of unjustified killings of black men by cops in this country. But each one has to be evaluated on its own merits. And everyone is presumed innocent, police included.

Even with 50 shots fired, the prosecution failed to make its case beyond a reasonable doubt because it couldn’t prove the cops were not in fear for their lives. And that’s what the law required.

So now, Sean Bell’s family should take it to the Department of Justice. Because federal prosecutors can likely prove his civil rights were violated — even if state prosecutors can’t prove a crime.

And that’s the Last Word.

– Jami Floyd, In Session anchor

NEW YORK – From the moment I arrived at the Queens County Courthouse, I knew tensions were high and emotions were volatile. The verdict was about to be announced in the Sean Bell case. This is the case in which a 23-year-old groom-to-be was shot dead by New York Police detectives November 25, 2006.

Bell was concluding his bachelor party in those early morning hours when 50 shots came from the guns of five police detectives. Three of those detectives had been charged, and two of the three, if convicted, could have been sentenced to 25 years in prison.

The officers said those bullets were justified because they reasonably believed that Bell’s friend had a gun and would use it on them.

Now, after a lengthy trial, Judge Arthur Cooperman was to deliver the verdict. He presided at a “bench trial” because the defendant detectives gave up their right to a jury trial and asked for a judge to determine their guilt or innocence.

A few minutes after 9 a.m., people started running out of the courthouse, screaming, “Not guilty!” Hundreds of supporters for Bell and his friends voiced their objections to the verdict through protests that got very loud as I was doing my live shots.

Law enforcement officers circled the courthouse, forming a security base in case emotions ran too high. They did not. Protesters remained peaceful. When Bell’s fiancee and family left the courthouse, supporters followed them as they made their way to Bell’s gravesite.

Once again, we see a family that has lost a son, a fiancee who lost her future husband, police officers who said they reasonably believed that they were in danger themselves and a very experienced judge who looked at the facts and the law to render his verdict.

– Jean Casarez, In Session correspondent

NEW YORK – It’s cases like this one that makes me glad to be a lawyer because, whatever the emotions of the Sean Bell trial, as lawyers we look at the evidence and only the evidence.

Jami Floyd has the last word on Sean Bell.

Of course, sympathies and emotions have run high ever since Sean Bell was killed after his bachelor party and on the morning of his wedding. To many police officers, the accused cops have been made scapegoats merely to placate an angry public. That’s not the case. Nor is it the case that the detectives are cold-blooded killers.

No, the only question in this case was whether they were criminally reckless in firing on Bell and his friends — beyond a reasonable doubt. And the fact that the cops fired 50 times is not itself grounds for conviction. It’s just part of what the judge had to consider.

In the end, Judge Arthur Cooperman’s duty was not to second-guess the cops, not to place the victim on trial. His job was to subject all the testimony to the intense scrutiny justice requires. To ascertain what really happened and why. And then, to apply the law. And that’s what he did, like it or not.

That’s the Last Word.

– Jami Floyd, In Session anchor

NEW YORK – Here’s the thing about jury verdicts: they almost always result in disagreement. That’s because, by definition, a case only goes to trial because the parties can’t agree on how it should be resolved.

So we certainly shouldn’t be surprised that, even after the trial is concluded, the parties, and their supporters, still disagree. Sometimes that disagreement takes the form of a philosophical divide over the more profound legal issues in a trial. Other times that disagreement can take the form of a deeply felt anger over the verdict and an overwhelming frustration with what they perceive to be the failure of the justice system.

This was the case in the reaction of Sean Bell’s family and friends to the “not guilty” verdicts in the trial of the police officers charged in Bell’s death. Watch some express outrage

But it’s important to remember, whatever you may feel about this verdict, that “not guilty” doesn’t mean that the system failed. Rather, it simply means that after both sides argued their cases, a judge determined that the prosecution had not proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt. Read more

And it is also essential that we remember that we can always disagree vehemently with the result in a courtroom, but we shouldn’t automatically assume that a difference of opinion justifies an indictment of the integrity of the justice system that rendered that verdict.

The debate over this case will continue. And it is a testament to the family and friends of Sean Bell that they have encouraged all of their supporters to express their discontent in a peaceful fashion.

As a final note, it is unfortunate that the New York court system has continued to refuse to allow cameras into their courtrooms. This is a case where the public would have benefited enormously from the opportunity to witness this case and assess the arguments of both sides firsthand. Watching and listening could only enhance an understanding of the verdict and better inform the debate that will, and should, follow.

– Jack Ford, In Session anchor

NEW YORK – The verdict in the Sean Bell case is due Friday morning. How do we know exactly when the verdict is coming down? Well, that’s just one of the many intriguing aspects of this case.

Sean Bell was the 23-year-old man who was shot and killed by police outside a New York nightclub just hours before he was to be married. The defendants — three police detectives — are charged with manslaughter and reckless endangerment as a result of the shooting death.  Read more

We know the precise time the verdict will be returned because the defendants chose to waive a jury trial and place their fate in the hands of a judge. That’s certainly a unique approach to a criminal defense, but in this case the attorneys and their clients apparently felt a judge might be less influenced than jurors by the emotions of the case.

Their defense is that the detectives were following up on suspicions concerning drug deals and weapons when they encountered Bell and his friends. Two of Bell’s friends were wounded in the shooting and none of them was armed, the investigation later disclosed.

At this point, the stories diverge dramatically. The prosecution says the police opened fire with no provocation, while the defense says the victims refused to respond to commands to exit their car and, in fact, attempted to run the police over.

Judge Arthur Cooperman, a veteran trial judge, heard the testimony and has said he will announce his decision Friday. It’s an unenviable position for any jurist, given the combustible reactions the city has witnessed in past alleged police brutality cases.

Certainly, the fact that two of the detectives are men of color, as was Sean Bell, will hopefully tend to mitigate any allegations of racism in the shooting.

In any event, justice in this case will be offered solely through the findings of one man, rather than 12 members of the community. The city hopes that, whatever is determined by that one man, the legacy of the Sean Bell case will not involve more violence.

– Jack Ford, In Session anchor

NEW YORK – It will soon be up to a judge to determine whether the so-called “50 shots” cops should be found guilty in a case that could also have nationwide ramifications on law enforcement. Three New York City police officers are charged in the fatal shooting of Sean Bell outside a Queens, New York, strip club on the night before his wedding.

Detectives Gescard Isnora and Michael Oliver, the two officers who fired the most rounds, are charged with manslaughter. Detective Marc Cooper is charged with reckless endangerment.

It may seem like an open-and-shut case: officers unloading a barrage of bullets on an unarmed Bell, who was inside a vehicle with two other men who also were wounded in the early morning hours of November 26, 2006. Even Mayor Michael Bloomberg said, “It seemed like excessive force was used.”

The district attorney in his opening statement Monday said that one of the three undercover officers failed to display his badge in a clearly visible manner and wait for backup before confronting the three men and then gave contradictory orders to Bell and his friends.

The prosecutor went on to say, “It will be clear that what happened cannot be explained away as a mere accident or mistake.”

Lawyers for the officers, who were working an undercover investigation of drugs and prostitution, have said their clients believed Bell and his friends were going to retrieve a gun from the vehicle to settle a dispute. One of the officers approached the car and Bell tried to flee, driving into an officer, then twice rammed into an unmarked police van as the bullets flew.

While the prosecutor said one officer who fired 31 shots would have found there was no threat if he had “paused to reassess,” a defense attorney estimated that it took as few as nine seconds to fire all those bullets from the officer’s semiautomatic pistol, leaving no time to reassess the situation. Another defense attorney said later in the week that Bell was drunk and “out of control” at the time.

Right now, the general rule in police training is that officers must use deadly force when they perceive a threat of imminent death or bodily harm. While officers are told when to shoot, it’s not always as clear when they should stop. Law enforcement may have to reassess how it handles such situations.

– Bob Regan, In Session senior executive producer