Mayor says police used excessive force

NEW YORK – Mayor Michael Bloomberg weighed in on the uproar over a deadly police shooting Monday, saying bluntly that officers appeared to use excessive force when they fired 50 shots at an unarmed man in a confrontation outside a strip club hours before his wedding.

“I can tell you that it is to me unacceptable or inexplicable how you can have 50-odd shots fired, but that’s up to the investigation to find out what really happened,” Bloomberg said at a news conference after meeting with elected officials and community leaders including the Rev. Al Sharpton and Rep. Charles Rangel.

The groom, Sean Bell, 23, was killed and two of his friends wounded early Saturday after a bachelor party at the strip club. Suspecting that one of the men had a gun, police fired 50 rounds into the vehicle. The men were unarmed.

In her first public comments on the shooting, Bell’s fiancee, Nicole Paultre, told a radio station Monday that the people who shot Bell shouldn’t be called officers.

“They were murderers, murderers,” she told hip-hop station Power 105.1. “They were not officers. No one gives anyone the right to kill somebody.”

Sharpton called the conference of leaders a “very candid” meeting. He said the message to Bloomberg was: “This city must show moral outrage that 50 shots were fired on three unarmed men.” Some have also questioned whether the shooting was racially motivated because the victims were all black men. The five officers who fired their guns included two blacks, two whites and one Hispanic.

Of the victims, Bloomberg said Monday: “There is no evidence that they were doing anything wrong,” referring to everything leading up to the moment they struck the officer with their car.

For a mayor to question the actions of the officers and defend the shooting victims – while reaching out immediately to the grieving community – sets a decidedly different tone than in the past. Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani was hounded for what some viewed as a slow response to the killing of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed West African immigrant who was shot 19 times in the Bronx by four white officers. They were later acquitted of criminal charges.

Bloomberg also said police appeared to have violated the policy stating that officers cannot shoot at a vehicle being used as a weapon if no other deadly force is involved.

But Bloomberg was steadfast in his support for Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, who has been denounced by some activists since the shooting.

Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown said Monday that the results of his office’s investigation would be presented to a grand jury. He said he had spoken with the mayor and police commissioner and had met with Sharpton, Bell’s parents and Paultre.