NY police go on trial in 50-shot killing of groom

By Edith Honan

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York police who killed an unarmed black man with 50 shots on his wedding day were careless and desperate to make an arrest because their vice unit was about to be disbanded, a prosecutor said on Monday.

Two officers went on trial for manslaughter and a third for reckless endangerment in the death of Sean Bell, 23, who was killed in 2006 following a bachelor party at a strip club in a case generating outrage in much of New York's black community.

Civil rights activist Al Sharpton sat next to the fiance, Nicole Paultre, in a gallery packed with Bell's friends and relatives and police sympathetic to the defendants. Protesters outside, many of whom wanted the officers to face murder charges, held up signs numbered 1 to 50, chanting each number.

Demonstrators have called the case an example of police brutality toward blacks. One of the defendants is a black, one is black Hispanic and the third is white.

The case will be decided by a State Supreme Court judge because the officers waived their right to a jury trial, saying any jury in the borough of Queens would be biased against police due to intense media coverage.

On the night of the shooting, the officers were told by a superior officer, "This might be our last night together. Let's make it count,'" assistant district attorney Charles Testagrossa said in opening arguments.

He accused the officers of "carelessness verging on incompetence" and said that once the shooting began they "never paused to reassess."

The Club Enforcement Unit was eager to make a prostitution arrest, which would have shut the club down, Testagrossa said.