Judge Arthur Cooperman, ruled not guilty on all counts in the trial of the police officers charged in the shooting of Sean Bell. Although I am not very familiar with the particulars of the trial itself, it appears that the verdict was reached based on witness credibility, combined with questionable prosecutorial practices.

Saying a lack of the witness credibility “eviscerated the people’s case,” Justice Arthur J. Cooperman returned a verdict of not guilty on all counts for three detectives charged in the shooting death of Sean Bell, who was gunned down outside Club Kalua 17 months ago in a hail of NYPD bullets on the eve of his wedding

“A week into the trial of three cops in the Sean Bell case, the prosecutors’ theory that two of the cops were “acting in concert” when the bridegroom was gunned down in a hail of police bullets is striking a sour note with some observers.

Attempting to imply that some form of conspiracy theory was behind the motives for the shooting seems to have taken a large part in the Judge’s decision to find the police officers not guilty. I will be updating throughought the day with reactions from the blogsphere, and expect to see the majority of the reactions to have racial implications.

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