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'50 Shots' police officers indicted on manslaughter charges · 623 days ago

The police officers who fired 50 shots into the car of unarmed victim Sean Bell killing him and wounding two others were indicted for first-degree and second-degree manslaughter as well as other charges on Friday, three months after the crime took place.

From the New York Times:


Two New York City police detectives were charged with first-degree and second-degree manslaughter in the death of Sean Bell, the unarmed 23-year-old black man who died in a burst of 50 police bullets, the Queens District Attorney, Richard Brown, said at a news conference today.

The eight-count indictment was handed up by a grand jury on Friday and unsealed this morning. In it, Det. Michael Oliver, 35, who fired his pistol 31 times, and Det. Gerard Isnora, 28, an undercover officer who fired 11 shots, are charged with both first-degree and second-degree manslaughter in Mr. Bell’s death, Mr. Brown said.

— SWAT Team

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Already a rap song called "50 Shots" · 728 days ago

I was in Queens when this shooting took place. As I walked through the city the next morning, I saw newspaper headlines about it in every newspaper box. This is one of the most ridiculous and sad stories of police brutality I’ve heard in a while. Fifty shots fired at suspects who had no weapons, and were under investigation by a vice crime squad? I don’t care what kind of drug/prostitution crime they were potentially involved in, emptying their clips into the car when no shots were ever fired back is outrageous. Even Michael Bloomberg, mayor of the city, is calling this one like it is. Brooklyn rapper Papoose released a track called “50 Shots” which aired on rap station Hot 97 this weekend.

From Newsday.com:


Between gunshot sounds and samples from soul singer Sam Cooke’s civil-rights-era classic “A Change Is Gonna Come,” Papoose takes aim at the police.

“If your reason was you thought he carried a gun / That means you killed him for nothing because he ain’t had one,” he raps.

But Papoose has some temperate praise for Mayor Michael Bloomberg, at least in comparison to his predecessor, Rudy Giuliani: “He got some better manners / But let’s see if we get some better policy.”



UPDATE: Lyrics and mp3 now available.

— SWAT Team

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