Sharpton is no longer relevant.

Well the Reverend Sharpton has done it again. Working up a bunch of people and making claims that he cannot support. Instead of shutting down New York City he slows down 6 transportation areas and delays some commuters.

The man could be a leader for the disadvantaged but everything he touches turns into a circus sideshow act. A million man march with maybe 200,000 people in it, and the shutdown of a city that truns into a 15 minute commuter delay. And what good is this doing? He is having a meeting with the governor of New York when his only legal recourse for a trial on racial discrimination is with the Federal courts.

I am not privy to all of the information on the case but it seemed that every effort was made to make it a fair as possible and the judge does have a good record at evaluating a case on its merits alone.

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CONSPIRACY ALERT! CONSPIRACY ALERT!

you're a moron, go back and reread the facts surrounding the choice to have a trial by judge and not jury.

Al Sharpton is the wrong person to lead the protesting against Sean Bell's murder.

Read the clipping below. In 2005 he appeared in TV commercials as a pitchman for a predatory car title lending company that targeted low-income earners. These short-term high interest loans secured by a car title can be even more disastrous than payday loans. They trap borrowers into long-term debt. As more and more Americans now face mounting debt in a weak economy, and predatory lending has ravaged low-income individuals, you wonder why it is the NY Times and Washington Post have not followed up on Sharpton's callous, selfish salesman pitch that sold-out his people three years ago.

(Washington Post, 11/29/2005):

Loan Ranger: If You've Got a Car, He's Got the Keys to Cash
By Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts

In commercials airing locally, the ever-colorful Sharpton stands on a stage with an American flag and happily declares, "Finally, there's someone in Virginia who will loan money to people the big guys won't loan to."

Car title lenders give cash to those who own their cars free and clear, with interest rates that can approach 300 percent annually. The lender can repossess and sell the car if the short-term loan is not repaid on time. The controversial practice is permitted in about half the states, and consumer groups are pushing hard for more regulation. "These are predatory small loans," said Jean Ann Fox of the Consumer Federation of America.

"If I felt this is in any way abusive, I would stop doing the ads," Sharpton said yesterday. He filmed three commercials for LoanMax, a Georgia-based company with 150 offices across the country, and said he considers these loans different from predatory ones because the borrowers have assets (the car) but not the credit rating to get bank loans.

"The ads are working very well," said LoanMax President Rod Aycox, who declined to say what Sharpton was paid. The spots began airing last week in Virginia, Iowa and New Mexico, states where legislators have proposed capping interest rates, and Aycox plans to continue them for another few weeks. "People just love Reverend Sharpton."

The court decision under discussion cannot be appealed and the choice of judge or jury is made by the defendant, i.e. the officers. Federal civil rights charges may be brought; as of yet nothing has been decided.

This judge in particular has come down on "both" sides of the police versus public line in past cases.

But let the well informed accusations fly anyway!

Um, guys, the defense was the cops, not Bell. And it was the defense who waived the jury trial, not the prosecution.

The fact that the incident occurred at all is the real crime.

It's hard to say that the prosecution put in its best performance in this case based upon the judge's written opinion; however, there most certainly will be appeals of the decision, and most likely a subsequent civil proceeding, which may have an entirely different outcome.

Below is the relevant section from the NY Criminal Procedure Code regarding waivers of jury trials.

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Yeah, I thought it was the defense that waived a jury trial...which IMO was a stupid thing to do. If I were in their shoes (and this is assuming Sean Bell really was behaving himself, of course), I'd WANT a jury of peers, not a judge who can be bought, influenced, and biased by the city.

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I thought that in state courts only a defendant, not the prosecutor, can waive a right to a jury trial. In state courts, the prosecutor does not even have the right to oppose that waiver.

But you probably know better, judging from your assertive tone and your strong conclusions of COLLUSION.

I guess the only thing that a rogue cop can be convicted on in NYC is the machine-gunning of an infant in a baby carriage in front of 5 videocameras.

Wasn't it convenient that the prosecution waived a jury trial and let a single judge decide this. Can we all spell COLLUSION!

The judge should be pulled out of his regal robes and tarred and feathered.

Newsday article

People protesting the acquittal of detectives in the fatal shooting of Sean Bell will gather Wednesday near six transit choke points around New York City before leading a march and "pray-in" organizers anticipate will lead to some arrests, the Rev. Al Sharpton said yesterday.

Speaking at the "House of Justice," headquarters for his National Action Network on 145th Street in Harlem, Sharpton said the civil disobedience will continue weekly, and produce a "citywide shutdown" to press for a civil rights prosecution.

"If you're not going to lock up the guilty in this town, then I guess you're going to have to lock up the innocent," he said.

The meeting places will be 125th Street and Third Avenue; Park Avenue and 34th Street; 60th Street and Third Avenue; One Police Plaza; Varick and Houston streets; and in Brooklyn at House of the Lord Pentecostal Church, 415 Atlantic Ave. Protesters will meet at 3 p.m., Sharpton said.

"Where we're going, those that know won't say, and those who'll say don't know," Sharpton said.

"All they'll know is why we're going," he added. "And we're going because the world must see that we're in a climate where the justice system in this state will lock up folks who'll be nonviolent and pray, but will not lock up police."

Several of the locations are near transportation pressure points, including the Triborough Bridge, the Queensboro Bridge, the Queens Midtown Tunnel on the East Side and the Holland Tunnel on the West Side - reminiscent of locations targeted by Sharpton and supporters in protests during the so-called "Days of Rage" nearly two decades ago, and again in 1999 after the police killing of Amadou Diallo.

On April 25, Queens State Supreme Court Judge Arthur Cooperman cleared three detectives - Michael Oliver, Gescard Isnora and Marc Cooper - in the shooting of Bell and two of his friends, Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield, outside a Jamaica, Queens, strip club on Nov. 25, 2006.

Prosecutors failed, the judge said, to undercut the officers' claims that they fired a 50-shot barrage in self-defense against Bell, who was unarmed. Within hours, the Department of Justice said the Eastern District U.S. attorney's office in Brooklyn and the FBI would be conducting an "independent review into the facts and circumstances" in the Bell case to see whether a federal civil rights prosecution was warranted.

In April 1999, Sharpton led protests of the killing of Diallo, 23, an unarmed West African immigrant hit 19 times in a fusillade of 41 bullets by four officers in the Bronx.

Then, about 7,000 protesters marched across the Brooklyn Bridge into lower Manhattan and held a rally at One Police Plaza to speak against police brutality. The protests were peaceful, though Sharpton and others - including Rep. Charles Rangel (D-Harlem), actress Susan Sarandon and activist Jesse Jackson - were arrested.

"The vigils and demonstrations related to the Bell case to date have not been violent," said Deputy Commissioner for Public Information Paul Browne. "We have no reason expect otherwise now. The police department, as it is on any day, is prepared for any contingency."

Police could not confirm yesterday if organizers had applied for permits for the planned protests.