On April 25, a New York judge acquitted three officers in the shooting death of
Sean Bell. The 23-year-old Bell and two friends were caught in a hail of fifty bullets on November 25, 2006, on the eve of Bell’s wedding. None of the three men, all black, were armed. After a seven-week trial without a jury, Justice Arthur Cooperman cleared two officers of manslaughter (as well as other charges) and a third of reckless endangerment. Hundreds of protestors gathered in Queens in the hours following the verdict to protest what many see as yet another case of police brutality, racism, and the misalignment of justice.