From: "The Sean Bell verdict—assuring that New York City’s police can kill with impunity" by Bill van Auken, 4/26/08 at:
www.wsws.org/articles/2008/apr2008/bell-a26.shtml

"Testimony by the non-police witnesses in the trial indicated that Bell and his friends had no knowledge that the men that confronted them with guns and then shot them were police officers."

"The judge dismissed not only the charges of manslaughter, but also misdemeanor counts of reckless endangerment in a shooting that saw bullets tear through the surrounding neighborhood, in one case smashing into a busy transportation hub a football field’s length away. One of the cops—Oliver—fired 31 times, reloading his pistol in order to keep pouring bullets into the unarmed men."

"The cops had been sent to the Club Kalua in Jamaica Queens, where Bell and his friends were celebrating a bachelor’s party on the eve of his wedding. They were there undercover, in plainclothes, investigating allegations of prostitution and drug sales at the location."

"Bell’s friends—one of whom, Joseph Guzman, barely survived 19 bullet wounds—testified that they never heard the cops shout “Police!” and had no idea that the man approaching their car waving his gun—Isnora—was a police detective. Their understandable reaction was to try to drive away and save their own lives." (NOTE: The plainclothes cops approached them outside the bar while the victims were in their car.)

"The three detectives in the Bell killing also had good reason to believe that a jury of 12 average New Yorkers would convict them, and opted to have the case heard by a judge." (NOTE: The fact that the prosecution allowed the judge to try the case instead of a jury is evidence that the prosecution was in collusion with the defense, proving that these courts provide no justice whatsoever.)

"There have been attempts by the police and some sections of the media to draw a distinction between the two cases on the grounds that, while the four cops in the Diallo case were all white, two of the three detectives on trial in the Bell killing were, like the victim himself, black."

"Whatever the background of the individual cops who pulled the triggers, however, the social and political realities that give rise to such police killings remain the same." (NOTE: It is the CLASS STRUGGLE that is primary; the color of the bosses' thugs is irrelevant. This was another case of police state terror by the capitalist class against the workingclass.)

"The same sentiments were echoed by the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, Senator Barack Obama. Campaigning in Indiana, Obama declared, “We’re a nation of laws, so we respect the verdict that came down.” (NOTE: BARACK OBAMA DEFENDS THE CAPITALIST POLICE STATE. The USA is not a nation of laws; it is a nation with its primary law being defending the profits of the capitalist class so worthless warmongering, pro-death penalty parasites like Barack Obama can become millionaires, only made possible by exploiting the labor of the workingclass, guaranteed by police state terror of the workingclass.)

THE CLASS STRUGGLE IN NEW YORK CITY MANDATES LABOR ORGANIZING FOR A SOCIALIST REVOLUTION:
"New York City’s 35,000-member police force has as its principal task that of policing the social divide—one of the deepest in the world—that cuts through the 8 million people sharing the city’s 23 square miles."

"According to an analysis of tax data released earlier this month, the city’s top 1 percent—some 82,000 people—account for fully 37 percent of the city’s total income. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, while the average annual salary in New York City stands at $40,899, the top fifth of Manhattan residents pull in an average of $351,333."

"Manhattan is an island shared by hedge fund manager John Paulson, who recorded $3.3 billion last year, with the bottom 20 percent—over 300,000 people—somehow surviving on an average household income of $8,855 a year."

"It is a city where former Citigroup chairman Sanford Weill can spend more than $42 million for an apartment on Central Park West, while a record 9,300 families sleep in the city’s homeless shelters each night."

"Boasting the most expensive restaurants in the country, it is also a city where 1.3 million residents—including over 400,000 children—periodically go hungry for lack of sufficient money to buy food."

"Protecting the interests of the haves against the have-nots under conditions of such stark social polarization requires a police force that knows it can kill with impunity. Judge Cooperman’s verdict has reaffirmed this fundamental bulwark of a grossly unequal society."