NY police cleared in 50-bullet wedding day shooting

By Edith Honan

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Three New York City police detectives were acquitted on Friday in the killing of an unarmed black man in a hail of 50 bullets on his wedding day -- prompting angry demonstrations and a federal review.

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

Federal authorities said they would consider civil rights charges under a review by the Justice Department, federal prosecutors and the FBI.

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

After the verdict, hundreds of demonstrators yelled, pushed and shoved as police, reporters and spectators packed the sidewalk outside the court building in the borough of Queens.

"They're murderers, criminals, and they are going to rot in hell where they belong," one man shouted.

Later, about 1,000 people marched from the courthouse to the site of the shooting, pumping fists, shouting "Justice for Sean Bell. NYPD go to hell" and counting from 1 to 50.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg appealed for calm.

"We don't expect violence or law-breaking, nor is there any place for it," Bloomberg said.

'CLOSE THE CITY DOWN'

Civil rights leader Al Sharpton, highly critical of the police and 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 said on his radio show. "We are going to be strategic. We are going to close the city down in a non-violent, effective way."

The killing of the groom and wounding of his two friends on Bell's wedding day, with 50 shots fired at the unarmed men, outraged New York's black community.

In a similar case nearly a decade ago, four police officers who fired 41 shots were acquitted in the death of an unarmed West African man, Amadou Diallo.

"It shows that there is no justice in America for the black man," said B.M. Marcus, a community organizer. "This is telling us the cops can do whatever they want and get away with it."