Beginning Jan. 24, City Limits has learned, City Council will investigate many such reform proposals in a series of extensive hearings. The public inquiry will examine everything from the tactics of undercover police officers and current stop-and-frisk guidelines to the oversight functions of agencies like the independent Civilian Complaint Review Board and the Internal Affairs Division of the NYPD.
The hearings, to be jointly convened by Council’s civil rights and public safety committees, will be coupled with a series of Council-sponsored public meetings held throughout the city on related police issues. At the conclusion of the hearings, Council is slated to present its findings and recommendations to Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. “I’d like to see the public’s faith in the police department restored,” said Councilmember Peter Vallone Jr., chairman of the public safety committee. “We need to ensure that if any changes need to occur inside the police department, that they happen, in order to prevent future tragedies.”
In the aftermath of the Bell shooting, many of the details surrounding the incident remain the subject of fierce debate between the NYPD, the Detectives Endowment Association, representing four of the five police officers involved, and law enforcement observers and critics.
At approximately 4 a.m. on Nov. 25, four undercover NYPD detectives and one police officer in plainclothes fired fifty bullets at Bell and two friends shortly after they left the Kalua Cabaret in Jamaica. One of the five, Detective Mike Oliver, is said to have fired some 31 bullets. Published accounts state that some of the officers perceived a threat after allegedly witnessing Bell and his friends in a verbal altercation with another group of men outside the club and hearing one of Bell’s party threaten to retrieve a gun from Bell’s gray Nissan Altima. No weapon was ever found in the vehicle or in the possession of any of the men. Bell, who was at the wheel and may have been intoxicated, according to a recently released toxicology report, apparently struck an unmarked police van twice as he attempted to leave the scene. That’s when officers are said to have fired at the car. Bell’s surviving companions say the detectives did not identify themselves before shooting; NYPD maintains they did.
For many, the Bell case reflects the need for changes to NYPD procedures and guidelines, some of which were proposed in the wake of the fatal, controversial police shootings of Amadou Diallo in 1999 and Patrick Dorismond in 2000. The following are some of the recommendations circulating among criminal justice advocates and experts:
Two Drink Maximum: Current guidelines allow undercover officers, like those monitoring Kalua Cabaret, to drink a maximum of two alcoholic beverages in order to blend into their surroundings. But it’s a policy that has come under fire after the Bell shooting. “It’s ridiculous. How do we know if they’re only having two drinks? And how can an officer be efficient at using his weapon if he’s been drinking anyway?” asks Kamau Karl Franklin, an attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR).
