Author: Tonya

Early in the day, I wrote in my notes, “courtroom is asleep.” Everyone had dozed off listening to the first witness of the day, NYPD criminalist Michelle Miranda, talk about ballistic damage to Sean Bell’s car. If it was the first time we’d all heard about all the bullet holes, we’d have been wide awake, but this is about the fifth witness to testify to the same thing. People were literally snoring.

But not long after I wrote that, things heated up when Miranda, declared an expert in gunshot residue, began removing clothing worn that morning by Trent Benefield, Joseph Guzman and Sean Bell from giant brown bags marked “biohazard,” and pointing out holes which she tested for gunshot and lead residue. The ballistics evidence is always a bit confusing, because the number of bullet holes in the clothing doesn’t necessarily mean that all of those bullets pierced the wearer’s skin or caused a wound; they could have passed through the clothing, making two different holes the result of one bullet, etc.

Anyway, that said, Miranda found a total of six holes containing elements of lead (making them likely bullet holes) in Benefield’s jeans, most on the back of the pants, one in the front, and one at the waist. Eerily, you could see the bullet holes in the courtroom, even from the back. Guzman’s outer vest bore six bullet holes, most of them on the right side; his pants four, all of them on the back of the pants, both legs; and his long-sleeved undershirt one in the shoulder area. Examining Sean Bell’s jacket, Miranda found a total of 14 holes, six of which tested positive for lead residue. Those six, deemed likely bullet holes, were on the right, back side of the jacket, the hood, and in the right shoulder and arm. While Miranda showed the judge the bullet holes, Nicole, Sean’s fiance, got up and left the courtroom, the door slamming loudly behind her as she went. Soon, the other people in her row left, along with Mr. Bell’s mother and father. Justice Cooperman halted proceedings for a minute or two until the situation calmed down a bit.

Miranda continued, saying that all bullet holes found in all of the clothing tested negative for gunshot residue, meaning that the shooter was not standing “near” or “in close proximity to” the three men in the car during the shooting, though Miranda didn’t define what those terms meant.

The upset in the courtroom at the showing of Bell’s bullet-torn jacket seemed to set the tone for the rest of the day. Mr. Ricco, Detective Isnora’s attorney, got short with Miranda over the word “twisted” regarding a portion of the Altima’s bumper in which a bullet hole was found, and later Paul Martin, counsel for Detective Cooper became visibly angry during his cross examination of the day’s second witness.

Anyway, Miranda also testified that she found additional ballistics evidence in the Altima’s flat tire, trunk, and dashboard, and that, judging by the way in which two bullet holes ended up in the Altima’s engine, the hood would have had to have been raised during the shooting, and a bullet would have had to have gone through the hood to have made a hole in the engine.

No gunshot residue was found inside the Altima; so, there’s no evidence any gun was ever fired from within Bell’s car. Finally, Miranda swabbed two bloodstains from the Altima’s hood and trunk for DNA testing, as well as several bloodstains in the rear seat of the Altima.

Next on was Assistant District Attorney Michelle Cort, a member of the District Attorney’s Integrity Bureau, which examines misconduct by police and DAs. It seemed pretty clear to me that ADA Cort was very unhappy, angry actually, with the police department and was not going to cut them one bit of slack in this case. She gave testimony recounting a meeting she and other ADAs assigned to the case had had with Detective Cooper and his lawyer, Mr. Martin, in January 2007.

According to Cort, Cooper told her at that meeting that, following a field team TAC meeting on the night of 11/24/06, he and the team, in three separate cars, proceeded to Kalua Cabaret, arriving there around 1:00 a.m. Cooper rode in the Camry with Lieutenant Napoli and Detective Headley. There was no police bubble light in the Camry. Cooper told Cort he was unfamiliar with Queens, having only recently been assigned the club initiative in that borough and having only been at Kalua on 11/21 for the team’s one previous prostitution and drug bust there.

Inside Kalua he saw Detective Isnora and Detective Sanchez talking near the front of the bar. Soon a woman with a tattoo reading “Crime” on her shoulder began speaking with Isnora. Cooper also saw that woman sitting next to a man about 6 feet tall and wearing a White Sox hat and lots of jewlery. Isnora told Cooper he saw the tattoo woman reach toward the White Sox man’s waistband and the man say, “I got it covered,” pointing to the waistband. Isnora told Cooper he thought that meant the man had a gun. Cooper didn’t hear that conversation but did see the tattooed woman speaking with the White Sox man.

Around 3:30 a.m., Cooper went to leave the club. When he went outside he didn’t see Sanchez or Isnora. He called Lieutenant Napoli and asked him to come pick him up, which Napoli did. Cooper got into the back passenger-side seat. Napoli told him Isnora had just phoned him about seeing an argument outside between a man standing near an SUV and some other men who were on their way toward Liverpool Street. Napoli radioed to Detective Oliver in the police minivan to “move in closer,” and Napoli also drove toward Liverpool. As they drove down Liverpool Street, Cooper saw three men get into an Altima very quickly. As their car drove past the Altima, Cooper saw one man getting into the rear of that car.

Suddenly, Cooper heard a crash, followed by gunshots. Detective Headley, who was driving, stopped and exited the car. Realizing he had no cover, Cooper slowly opened the passenger-side door, and stepped outside of the car with his right foot, keeping his left foot in the Camry. With his right arm extended out and around the Camry’s door and leaning on the door, crouching behind it, Cooper peeked around to see the Altima’s back window blown out. He fired one shot in the direction from which he heard the shots coming — the Altima, which he had his gun trained on. Cooper, according to Cort, had said that he fired for cover. Cooper never saw Isnora. Napoli remained inside the car, ducking down.

Cooper then saw Benefield running down the street, past the Camry. Headley began to chase him, and Cooper joined in the chase. Because he saw nothing in Benefield’s hands, Cooper never shot at him.

During the meeting, Cort claimed Cooper said he was “certain” he only fired one shot that morning. ADA Charles Testagrossa asked Cooper if his weapon was fully loaded at the time he began his day, and, if so, how many bullets were missing from it. Cooper responded that he should have three more bullets in the weapon than he had, but said he had found the remaining loose rounds at his house in a drawer after the incident.

On cross examination, Cort said Cooper told Testagrossa he normally removed his magazine and bullets from his gun at home each night; some of them had simply remained there, mistakenly. Cort said Cooper was never asked, and never said, whether he felt he was being fired on before he shot. Counsel was incredulous that such a fundamental question was never asked at the meeting.
Finally, the parties stipulated that DNA tests on the bags of marijuana and black gloves found on the street were insufficient for testing. So, we’ll never know whom those bags of pot belonged to.

I don’t have much time tonight, so this will be short, but today’s testimony was very odd. I feel like the prosecution is calling every single person who participated in the crime scene investigation in any way.

First on was Dr. Peter Pizzola, another CSU detective (and very educated; he has a PhD in Philosophy of Criminal Justice, which is why the Dr. preceding his name — he’s not an MD). Anyway, he was declared an expert in crime scene and ballistic reconstruction, but not accident reconstruction. So, still no expert testimony about who initially smashed into whom.

He didn’t want to speak with absolute certainty about anything but said that analyses of paint chips he ordered taken from the gray pedestrian gate of the building on Liverpool Street and the rear bumper of Bell’s Altima showed that Bell’s Altima could have come into contact with the gate. He also found clothing fibers compressed into the Altima’s front bumper. Comparative analysis of those fibers with material from Detective Isnora’s pants revealed that the car’s front bumper could have come into contact with Isnora. Since the fibers were compressed into the bumper, such contact was not casual — ie: it did not occur with Isnora simply standing next to the bumper; there had to be somewhat more forceful contact. Paint smears on the Altima’s front bumper could have come from the license plate of the police minivan. There was a tire smear on the side of the police minivan, but Pizzola could not say whether it was from the Altima.

Based upon his impact analysis, Pizzola said the collision happened as such: the police van and Altima impacted, the Altima backed into the sidewalk then into the gate on the building, then went forward again and again made contact with the minivan. The paint on the Altima from the minivan’s license plate was from the first, not second impact.

When Pizzola was first given the Altima for examination, it was already in the precinct’s garage. At that point part of the car’s bumper, foam from seats, and other large items were haphazardly packed into the car’s backseat. Saying he didn’t want to “second-guess anyone,” Pizzola admitted he thought the placement of such objects was not so swift. He noticed the car’s two rear tires were deflated and the front driver’s one flat; ballistics evidence was found inside of that front flat tire. Two bullet holes in the Altima’s hood were definitely made after the damage to the front of the car (so, the crash happened before the shooting). There was slight, typical factory tinting on the front windshield of the Altima, and there was perhaps a bit of tinting on the rear window, but the side windows were not tinted.

The shots fired into the rear of the Altima and into the Air Train station were produced by Detective Cooper’s gun. Cooper was shooting from the unmarked police Camry, parked down the street behind the Altima. The slope of the shot that fired into the Air Train was 11 degrees upward — a slope “slightly” above the target, also called “a grazing shot.”

Detective Edward Bingham (not sure if I’ve spelled his last name right) was the source of the aforementioned odd testimony. Another CSU detective, he examined the Dodge Stratus parked on Liverpool Street that sustained a bullet hole to its trunk; the bullet was found inside the trunk’s interior lining.

Bingham also documented the trajectory of the 24 bullet holes in the Altima through a 3D model called a “total station.” Using Pizzola’s trajectory rods, he made these 3D images, which were projected onto the courtroom screens. They showed a model car with long, long lines pointing toward it, each line representing one of the 24 rods marking the bullet holes. The minute he put up the 3D images, they looked odd and very out of proportion. The trajectory lines seemed ridiculously long, seemingly coming from either below the surface of the ground or way above, in the air. It turned out, as revealed on cross, that he hadn’t made a vertical scale, only a horizontal one. There hasn’t yet been any testimony about how far away each detective was from Bell’s car during the shooting, but Bingham admitted, according to one image, if the detective shot from 28 feet away, he would have had to be aiming from 14 feet in the air. “You don’t know any 14-foot tall people, correct,” defense counsel Ricco asked rhetorically. According to another image, if the detective had fired from 15 feet away, he would have had to be underground. Bingham admitted that when he made the “total station” he hadn’t taken into account the fact that the passenger side of the Altima was higher than the driver’s side when it was shot at (both because of the flat driver’s side tire and the dips in the street). He performed the test only in the precinct garage, rather than at the scene, making it difficult for him to get the proper dimensions since the garage was so small. On redirect, DA Testagrossa adduced from the detective that he hadn’t intended to show the placement of the shooters in the images. But there was a long side bar before the admission of the images, after Mr. Ricco objected to them on the grounds that the DA hadn’t given an “offer of proof” as to their relevance. After the lenghty side-bar, Ricco withdrew his objection, but I wondered what that relevance was after all…

The little things that amuse me

Originally uploaded by swan lake samba girl via mobile.

Today’s courtroom passes are green & have little clovers on the bottom.

Yesterday was a short day. The only testimony came from yet another Crime Scene Unit detective, Charles Reiss, who took 63 photos of Sean Bell’s Altima at the NYPD garage after it had been towed there for evidence preservation, and photos of two gates in front of a building on Liverpool Street that appeared to have been impacted by the Altima. Because this set of Altima photos was taken once it had been removed from the scene, we could see its entire front including the point of impact with the unmarked police minivan. The whole front bumper was off and the right front passenger-side wheel was turned awkwardly in, “dramatically” so, Reiss said. The front driver’s side tire was flat. The passenger windows were missing. In examining the glass recovered from those windows, Reiss said they didn’t seem to be tinted, which one can determine by the way the glass breaks.

There was some, but not as much, damage to the car’s rear: the point where the trunk meets the body of the car was askew, the trunk was ajar, there was a bullet hole in the trunk lid, the back bumper was damaged, and the rear deck inside the car was covered with glass.

Reiss took several hair and fiber samples and serological (body fluid) swabs from inside the car and sent them to the lab, and he, too, documented the car’s ballistic damage. He went through all the bullet holes and bullets recovered in the car, most of which went through the passenger side of the car. Reiss tried but was unable to collect any latent fingerprints from inside or on the car.

In examining the scene, Reiss saw glass splattered on the ground in front of two gates covering pedestrian and vehicular entrances to a building on Liverpool Street located diagonally behind the Altima, as well as a damaged lock to the pedestrian gate, chipped painting on the adjacent vehicular red gate, and chipped red paint on the Altima’s rear bumper. He concluded from all of this evidence that the Altima may have crashed into the gates. He therefore obtained paint samples from the rear of the Altima and both gates and sent them to the lab for analysis. When asked whether there was any doubt in his mind that the Altima had been involved in multiple collisions that morning, sustaining damage to front and back, Reiss said “no.”

Reiss’s testimony about the two collisions is important because it contradicts earlier eyewitness testimony by exotic dancer Marseilles Payne. Ms. Payne had said she saw the unmarked police minivan crash once into the Altima, followed immediately by shooting. She said the Altima never backed up into the building and came forward again crashing into the minivan, which is the defense contention.

And that concludes weeks three of the trial.

It’s kind of weird how the trial is a big deal on one hand, and on another, it’s not. There’s a fairly large media presence, though some days more than others. N.J. Burkett from News Channel 7 was back from Albany yesterday; he breezed in halfway through the testimony. There’s a total of four sketch artists — all of whom seem quite taken with Detective Oliver; from where I’m sitting I can usually see the progressing drawings of two to three of them and one day all three had nothing on their canvasses but his profile. He is rather charismatic and is located the closest to them, but still, I wanted to laugh when I saw three paintings of exactly the same thing. Earlier in the week when the judge briefly recessed the case to hear another item on his docket and the defendants had to leave the front area, one sketch artist actually followed Oliver around the room. He looked up at her and smiled kind of self-consiously. He looks at ease with all the attention — not like he is eating it up but not uncomfortable either. Detective Isnora on the other hand usually sits slightly hunched over and head slightly down. And Detective Cooper, charged with the least serious of the offenses, kind of sits off to the side, on the fringe. Still, I wanted to stand up and applaud when one of the artists actually began a drawing of Detective Cooper yesterday.

As for the families: the Bell family is always present, especially Sean’s mother, father, and Nicole, his fiance. There’s a large man who always sits next to the father, who I suspect is Sean’s brother. And Nicole’s row of friends are always there for support. Her lawyer is often present, and Sharpton shows up about once a week and for brief periods of time. On the defense side, the second and third rows are equally packed with police officers. I don’t know the detectives’ families, but I suspect some are there. There was a cherubic-faced but worried-looking woman who looked just like Detective Isnora but white-Hispanic, not black, talking to him the other day during brief recess.

And as for the spectators: the courtroom is often fairly full by late morning but the regulars are becoming fewer and fewer. We all sit in the same seats and are kind of getting to know each other, if mainly by sight. There’s an older man with a limp and a thicket of white curly hair who sits diagonally behind me and I honestly worried about him after not seeing him for two days in a row. Thursday I met a woman who always sits near me. She told me she’s a police officer and her son’s currently studying at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. “That could have been my son,” she said referring to Bell. “I know police procedure. I’m here because we need answers.”

I’ve been asked a few times why I’m there. I think I am just about the only white regular who’s not official press and not associated with the police so it is probably curious. The guards outside keep trying to send me to jury duty. They have police barricades set up outside the courthouse separating the main entrance from a side entrance which leads to a narrow hallway, thronged by police guards, reporters, and a large TV camera, then on to the main courtroom. Every morning I start to walk up the courthouse steps around the barricade and toward the side door but am stopped and directed around the other way, behind the jurors. I simply say “Sean Bell” and they say, “oh,” and let me continue on my way. Thursday when I was walking along to the proper door and heard a guard call out “miss, miss,” then another say, “naw, she’s here for Sean Bell,” I considered it a minor victory.

The above was said by my favorite attorney, defense counsel Anthony Ricco, when he asked the prosecution’s last witness of the day, on cross, whether she was relieved when the police arrived at her house to ensure she was okay and to search for an errant bullet that pierced her living room window during the shooting. The witness, Maria Rodrigues, nodded almost instinctually, then looked out into the crowd of spectators and realized the context. “Yeah, yeah,” she continued, under her breath. I personally feel better when the police arrive after I’ve called 911 (which has only happened twice in my life — once in college and once over something that happened not long ago here), but then I’ve always lived in largely white, middle-class areas where the police are almost always a positive presence…

Today’s spectators included a group of local high-school students from a school specializing in criminal justice, and their two very enthusiastic teachers. Sweet. And it turned out to be a good day for them to attend because Al Sharpton made a rare appearance (this is the only third time I’ve seen him here); he stayed for the morning testimony then gave a press conference at lunchtime outside and was gone by the afternoon.

Anyway, all of today’s testimony consisted of eyewitness accounts of people who lived on Liverpool Street, where the shooting occurred. Well, almost all. First on was Detective Christopher Florio from the crime scene unit who responded to North Shore Hospital to photograph the officers involved and their injuries. So, full length photos of the five plainclothes officers who fired weapons that night were shown, followed by a photo of the cut thumb of Detective Carey (not charged here), and another picture of Detective Isnora’s smallish shin abrasion sustained when Bell’s car hit him. We also saw photos Florio took of all five guns and ammo recovered. There was a small amount of dried blood near the front of Detective Isnora’s Glock. Update: I hadn’t thought much of this evidence (the small amount of blood on the gun) when it was presented in court because I thought it could have come from a number of places, but according to news reports here and here and here, apparently some, like Al Sharpton, calling the “bloody gun” a “smoking gun”, are surmising that it meant Detective Isnora was shooting from very close range, enabling him to see the men in Bell’s car were weaponless. I think we’ll have to wait for other evidence, though, including tests indicating whose blood was on that gun, to derive any meaning from it).

Next was Detective Thomas Forte, also from CSU, who examined ballistic damage to the Green Ford Explorer parked on the side of the street. Because the car was never examined by the original CSU detective, Detective Rivera, the car’s owner Bernardino Dossantos (who would testify next) brought it to the Task Force’s garage, leaving Forte to examine it two weeks after the shooting. Forte found on it two bullet impact marks (meaning the bullet hit the area but didn’t pierce it and make an actual hole): one on the front passenger quarterpanel and one on the rear passenger-side door. Both impact marks tested positive for lead (bullet) presence.

Dossantos, the owner of the Explorer who lived around the corner from Liverpool, testified next. From Portugal, he could probably have used an interpretor; he had some real trouble understanding complicated, nuanced questions, particularly those posed by the defense. Nevertheless, he was pretty funny. Speaking in his thick accent, he was one of those charmingly authentic, no nonsense people. He literally came from his job as a construction worker, covered in dust, sweat, and yellow safety vest, and he made it clear up front he was missing some valuable work time here. The attorneys were good humored and promised they would hurry.

Dossantos was sleeping at 4:15 a.m. on 11/25/06, when his wife heard shots and woke him. He then heard about 8-10 shots himself, coming from Liverpool. He dressed and walked out onto that street, where he saw Lieutenant Napoli’s Toyota Camry. Three men were behind it — two standing above a black man, Bennefield, who was lying on the ground, bleeding from the head. As emergency workers helped him into an ambulance, Bennefield said, “watch my legs, watch my legs.”

Dossantos’s wife told him there was some damage to his Explorer, which was parked in front of his house on the side of the street. He claimed he left the Explorer in that position the whole day, only moving it the following morning, which contradicts Rivera’s earlier testimony that he couldn’t examine the Explorer on the day of the shooting because it had been moved from within the crime scene tape before he could get to it. In any event, Dossantos brought the truck down to the NYPD Task Force’s garage two weeks after the shooting. “Of course I bring it, I want pay!” he said, all seriousness. Everyone laughed. He looked out at us like we were nuts, before assuring us the NYPD did indeed compensate him for the damage. When asked if he had walked around his house to examine it for any damage, he frowned and said, “No, no, not my house, I rent, I don’t care to look,” as if it was a crazy question.

In the afternoon, the court heard from Robert Hernandez, who lived in the house at the corner of Liverpool and 95th Avenue and whose aluminum-filled chain link fence sustained two bullet holes. At 4:14 a.m. on 11/25/06, he was in his living room trying to find the remote control to shut off his TV when he heard shouting followed by a gunshot. He couldn’t make out the contents of the shouts, but heard two male voices. He then heard a gunshot, a 3/4 of a second pause, then a barrage of gunfire. He looked out his living room window to see Napoli’s Camry with its headlights on and the front doors open and a light-skinned man wearing a blue sweater and jeans crouching behind one of the doors. The man suddenly turned and ran down the street.

Hernandez looked down the street and saw a man holding a silver gun leaning against a black Honda parked on the side of the street. He then saw two dark-skinned men standing next to his fence and above another man, Bennefield, who was lying on the ground complaining that his legs hurt.

One of the standing men said to Bennefield, “Why you runnin’?”

Bennefield said, “I didn’t do nothing.”

Standing man said, “If you didn’t do nothing then why you running?”

Hernandez then heard someone else say “The cops are coming,” before hearing sirens.

Hernandez ran upstairs to get a better view. From there he saw Bell’s Altima collided with the police minivan.

About five minutes later Hernandez saw several uniformed officers in the area, including one who was inspecting his backyard with a flashlight. Later that morning, Hernandez went downstairs to survey the damage. He saw a bullethole on both sides of his corner fence — the Liverpool side and the side bordering 95th Avenue, which intersected with Liverpool. He saw Dossantos’s Explorer across the street bearing a dent and a neighbor’s minivan parked down the street with a shattered window.

Hernandez’s wife, whom Hernandez directed to call 911, heard a car screeching away. Her 911 call was played in court. She sounded very meek and frightened, saying, “people are yelling, cars are screeching, there are many shots.”

Significantly, at the time he witnessed the events, Hernandez hadn’t known any of the men he saw — the man leaning on the Honda, the man crouching behind the Camry door, or the two men standing over Bennefied — were police officers. He thought the whole thing was a “gang situation.” “Most of the guys who go into Kalua Club are thugs,” he said.

Before the final witness for today, Justice Cooperman held a short recess so that he could briefly take care of another matter on his docket, which he sometimes does. I had to run to the bathroom, and, by the time I returned, they were already in the middle of the matter, but it sounded like Cooperman and the lawyers were trying to schedule a man’s sentencing date. After they agreed on a day, the man, black, was taken, in handcuffs, out of the room by officers. As he went he looked out at us, at the ridiculously large, packed courtroom. Something tells me his trial wasn’t quite so well attended. A woman sitting down the row from me stood up and waved out to him. He looked at her and for the split second they had, locked eyes. As soon as he was taken from the room, she sat briefly, looking forlorn, then quickly rose and, excusing herself, passed by me. I felt so horrible for her, as I always feel for the women — the wives and mothers of the defendants.

But more, this man, who had obviously been held for his sentencing date in Rikers, scruffy, hair unwashed, and in torn clothes, was such a contrast to the three defendant detectives in this case, all of them dressed in expensive-looking suits — particularly Detective Oliver — clean, polished, well cared for. I’ve often seen the detectives leaving the nice Italian restaurant down the street from the courthouse with their lawyers and /or a large group of men from the Police Detectives Endowment Association, all of whom are present for support in the courtroom as well. I realize there are reasons why some defendants are remanded to Rikers to await trial and sentencing and others are not — some are considered serious flight risks or a danger to the community or can’t make bail — but it’s still sad there’s such a sharp disparity of treatment.

Last was the aformentioned Maria Rodrigues, who lived in the house on Liverpool whose living room window was pierced by a bullet. At 4:15 on that morning she was sleeping in her bedroom, located at the back of the house, when she heard a noise. Her husband woke too and told her he thought they were gunshots. Soon she heard the sound of breaking glass, which she knew was coming from her living room. She called out to her teenage children to stay in bed, in their rooms. She thought she heard about 10-12 shots in all, and after they were finished, she heard someone yell out, “get down” or “stay down.”

Minutes later, she heard a knock at her door. A voice identified itself as that of a police officer, who’d come to make sure the family was all right. She opened the door, told the officers she was okay, and they searched for a bullet, not finding anything. She saw her window was broken. Later that day another detective came by, finding the bullet in a lampshade near the window.

Outside, she saw that her husband’s car, a blue Mitsubishi parked in front of the house, had a partially shattered windshield, and it looked as if a bullet had entered through the back driver’s side door, passed through the front seat’s headrest, and exited through the front window.