Text size:

Funeral for slain groom

BY ANDREW STRICKLER | Newsday Staff Writer

December 2, 2006

People line up to get inside Community Church of Christ in Jamaica for the wake and funeral of Sean Bell who was shot by police officers the day he was supposed to get married. (Viorel Florescu, Newsday staff / December 1, 2006)

In an outpouring of grief and anger, hundreds of people made a sad pilgrimage Friday to a small Queens church for the wake and funeral of Sean Bell, the young man shot and killed by police a week ago on the day he was to marry.

Bishop Lester Williams, who was to have officiated at the marriage of Bell to Nicole Paultre, instead spoke to mourners inside the Community Church of Christ about anger over the death of Bell, 23, who was unarmed.

"You don't have to wonder why our blood boils," Williams said. "We are tired of a pattern of being profiled, of being the victims of mistaken identity."

A brief address by the Rev. Al Sharpton was frequently interrupted by cheers and applause from listeners both inside and outside the church, where loudspeakers had been set up along 108th Avenue.

"We don't hate cops. We don't hate race. We hate wrong," Sharpton said.

In a reference to public officials' calls for calm, he said, "They have been calling for peace, but they just want quiet. We want peace, but we won't get quiet until we have justice."

Many mourners arrived hours before the 7 p.m. service and joined a line that snaked down the street. Inside the church, Bell lay in an open coffin, his arms folded across his chest.

Embroidered in the coffin's interior were the words "We love you," along with the names of his 22-year-old fiancee and their two daughters, Jada, 3, and Jordyn, 5 months. Nearby, a flower arrangement evoked Bell's baseball jersey from John Adams High School in Ozone Park, with the numbers "33" worked in flowers.

Bell had been celebrating his bachelor party with friends at Kalua Cabaret on 94th Avenue in Jamaica. Police had targeted the club as part of an undercover vice operation investigating drugs, prostitution and guns.

When Bell and several friends left the club at about 4 a.m. last Saturday, an undercover cop overheard one of Bell's friends, Joseph Guzman, refer to a gun, police said. After the cop followed the men to their car nearby, Bell drove into the undercover officer and then into an unmarked police minivan.

Moments later, the undercover cop and four other officers opened fire on the car in a barrage of 50 rounds, killing Bell and wounding Guzman, 31, and Trent Benefield, 23.

It still is unclear what triggered officers to fire, and the shooting is the subject of investigation by the Queens district attorney's office, which eventually will present evidence to a grand jury. No weapon was found in the car.

Friday evening, outside the church packed with mourners, William Boatwright, 28, of Richmond Hill, said he had known Bell and that the death had deeply affected him.

"I am upset. I am scared as well as angry," Boatwright said. "I don't feel safe on the streets, and I truly think that's unfair."

Both Guzman and Benefield remain hospitalized in Mary Immaculate Hospital with multiple bullet wounds. Benefield had surgery Friday to put a rod in his right leg. The condition of Guzman, who was shot at least 11 times, was changed from critical for the first time since the shooting. He was listed in stable condition.

Outside the hospital before the start of Bell's wake, Benefield's mother, Denise Ford, asked for calm.

"Please, let's respect this day. Don't cause no problems," she said. "We don't need no more trouble."

T.W. Farnam and staff writer Emerson Clarridge contributed to this report.