Credit: Peter Chin
The Rev. Al Sharpton
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When his cell phone rang on the morning of Saturday, November 25, the Reverend Al Sharpton was on his way to Harlem. Same as every Saturday morning, his civil rights organization, the National Action Network, was holding a rally, and he was right on schedule. But the caller had a chilling story with all-too-familiar details: A Black man. Police shooting. Questions with no answers. Sharpton didn’t have much to go on, but he agreed to go to Queens and check out the situation.
When he arrived at Jamaica Hospital and learned the heartbreaking tale of Sean Bell —a young, unarmed man who died in a hail of 50 bullets from undercover police on the morning of his wedding day —he got angry. He’d seen similar situations in the past: Back in 1997, Sharpton advocated for Abner Louima, a Brooklyn man who was beaten and sodomized with a plunger by officers while in police custody. Sharpton also fought for the family of Amadou Diallo, another unarmed man, who in 1999 was shot 41 times by undercover officers, dying outside his home in the Bronx.
These tragedies brought national attention to the issue of police brutality and provoked outrage, yet the issue remains. Sharpton, however, noted in our interview that Bell’s story seems to connect with people more than previous incidents. An experienced activist, he says this case is different from the others: Instead of one victim with only police officers being present, this case has eyewitnesses. Two of them, Trent Benefield and Joseph Guzman —who had also been shot that morning —had even been in the car with Bell.
With few concrete details and only a passing knowledge of who these people were, Sharpton mobilized his resources and began to piece together the final hours of Sean Bell’s life. Here Sharpton walks through the first 24 hours after the shooting, telling why he believes it was so important to get the victims’ side of the story out to the media and why the death of Sean Bell may be the case that forces police to be accountable for their actions.
In His Own Words:
I’m riding up Madison Avenue, coming into Harlem when my cell phone rings. The caller said he was a cousin of Sean Bell, who had been killed at four in the morning after a bachelor party. He said they weren’t being given any information at the hospital, and they didn’t know where the other two men who had been in the car with him were.
“Would you just call the hospital and help us get some information?” he asked.
“All right, I’ll tell you what. I’ll come out there and try to get one of the lawyers at the National Action Network to come through and help you at the hospital. But then I have to make my rally.”
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