Muncie Times, Muncie, Delaware County, 4 March 2010 — Page 33

The Muncie Times • March 4, 2010 • Page 33

News Briefs

continued from page 32 tice does, in fact, provide equal protection.” Upon the news of the officers' acquittal in 2008, the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division and the FBI announced they would conduct an independent review of the facts surrounding Bell's death. The Department of Justice said there is insufficient evidence to pursue federal criminal civil rights charges against the NYPD officers. Officials from the Civil Rights Division met with the Bell family, along with Benefield and Guzman, to inform them of the decision.

“The department conducted a comprehensive, independent investigation of the events surrounding the Nov. 25, 2006, shooting that resulted in Bell's death,” the department said in a statement. “A team of experienced civil rights prosecutors and agents reviewed all of the materials and evidence generated and provided by the Queens County district attorney's office and the NYPD, including witness statements, crime scene evidence, ballistics reports, reconstruction analyses, medical reports, state grand jury proceedings and the state trial record.” The Department of

Justice cited that neither accident, mistake, fear, negligence nor bad judgment is sufficient to establish a federal criminal civil rights violation. While Sharpton was not at the press conference, due to his attendance at a religious conference in Florida, he did release a statement about the decision, saying that he spoke with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. “I expressed to him my extreme disappointment in the decision and [that] our legal advisers saw the evidence and federal jurisdiction differently,” Sharpton said. “We agreed, however, that the family and community

must continue to bring a new day in how we deal with police matters and how both community residents and police are protected equally under the law.” Sharpton added that even though two of the three officers involved in the shooting are black, he plans to continue his pursuit for justice, calling 50 shots fired at unarmed men who were not committing a crime “intolerable.” Brooklyn City Councilman Charles Barron said in a statement that he received a phone call from the Justice Department in response to a letter he wrote requesting an

investigation in the Sean Bell shooting. He called the decision “outrageous” and a “gross miscarriage of justice.” "What is the sense of having a black president and a black United States attorney general if they are not going to protect the lives of innocent black citizens?” he said. “Black citizens are disproportionately killed by law enforcement officers who we pay to protect us. They are also sending a signal to blacks living in inner cities, saying to the people, 'We are not going to protect you. You must find the means to protect yourselves.'”

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