^[1]After reading many accounts of the Sean Bell incident ^[2], I have come to a few conclusions:

- First off, as usual, people are jumping to conclusions ^[3]… The blame falls on Al Sharpton, who tends to jump on bandwaggons ^[4] that will help to get his name in the paper.
- This Guzman fellow apparently announced he had a gun in the car, in front of an undercover officer… That is not only the testimony of the police, but also witnesses who were at the strip club ^[5] when this all went down.

MORE AFTER JUMP!

- Do people actually believe that these three/four guys had good intentions? They were all career criminals, with multiple drug and weapons violations on their rap sheets. There was drugs found near their car, which is believed to have been thrown out of the car when the cops announced themselves. These were not innocent, upstanding guys just out having a good time. They were screw-ups, and they were destined for trouble.
- Everyone is questioning whether the officers on the scene identified themselves as cops… These were all experienced officers. Do people really think these officers would put themselves in such a precarious position by not announcing they are cops? Plus, many witnesses say that the plainclothes officer was wearing his shield around his neck, and JUMPED ON THE HOOD OF THE CAR SCREAMING THAT HE WAS A COP and that Bell should stop the car and get out. Instead, he chose to floor it.
- How can racism be an issue. Of the five cops involved, 3 were minorities ^[3] (two white cops, two black cops, and one Hispanic). So, if 60% of the involved officers were not white, how can this be an issue of white-on-black racism? Am I missing something here?
- Unless there is A LOT of information we don’t know, Bloomberg seems pretty spineless. It seems that all the evidence points to this being a clean defensive shooting… How can he accuse the cops of foul play? He lost a lot of friends in the public service sector, that is for sure.
- People need to be responsible for themselves. If the guy had not tried to run down the cop… twice… he would have just been arrested and probably released again after a few hours (the inherent maladies of our justice system is a whole other post), but instead, he is dead. It is a shame that a life was lost, and I don’t believe he deserved to die, but defensive shooting is far from an exact science. If the guy didn’t want to take that gamble, he should not have floored it toward a cop. Furthermore, if I were staring down at a car zooming straight toward me, I would be pulling that trigger like a mad man.

I am not for police brutality, and I am certainly in favor of crack-downs and making sure that the right level of enforcement occurs and officers are trained properly. But, it seems that the public, spurned by the media, is screaming “abuse” when all of the facts and evidence point to the fact that there was no abuse. What am I missing?

[Photo courtesy FoxNews ^[5]]