NY police cleared in 50-bullet wedding day shooting

By Edith Honan

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Three New York City detectives were found not guilty on Friday in the shooting death of an unarmed black man killed in a hail of 50 bullets on his wedding day, prompting angry reactions and a federal review of the case.

A New York state judge cleared two police officers of manslaughter and other charges and a third of reckless endangerment in the death of Sean Bell, 23. Bell was shot, along with two friends, after a bachelor party at a strip club in November 2006.

But federal authorities said they would consider civil rights charges in the case in a review to be conducted by the Justice Department, federal prosecutors and the FBI.

They will "take appropriate action if the evidence indicates a prosecutable violation of federal criminal civil rights statutes," the Justice Department said in a statement.

After the verdict, hundreds of demonstrators yelled angrily, and there was pushing and shoving in the crowd as police, reporters and spectators packed the sidewalk.

Civil rights leader Al Sharpton, who has been highly critical of police and is influential in New York's black community, called for wider protests.

"They want us to act crazy so they would have an excuse to do more," Sharpton told the audience of his radio show. "We are going to be strategic. We are going to close the city down in a nonviolent effective way."

Mayor Michael Bloomberg called for calm after the verdict, saying, "We don't expect violence or law-breaking, nor is there any place for it."