Louima: How many have to die?

Louima: How many have to die?

Police brutality icon shows support for shooting victims

BY JOHN MARZULLI, JOHN LAUINGER and CORKY SIEMASZKO
DAILY NEWS WRITERS

Police brutality survivor Abner Louima had a message yesterday for the cops who gunned Sean Bell down on his wedding day: "We are not target practice."

Calling the 50-shot barrage that felled Bell "outrageous," Louima said the NYPD has to change the way it conducts undercover operations in black neighborhoods. "How many people have to die?" he asked.

But Louima, whose beating and sodomizing by cops in 1997 horrified the city, made it clear he was not criticizing the entire department.

"I cannot judge all of the Police Department by one action," he told the Daily News. "We know most of our policemen are good. But they have a duty to train their officers and make sure this doesn't happen."

It was the first time Louima, who now lives in Florida, weighed in on the Bell shooting. He said he intends to return here Saturday for a rally protesting the Bell shooting.

"It is something I have to do," he said. "I am a survivor. In my case, many people who I didn't even know were marching for me."

Louima also said he's given some advice to Bell's fiancée, Nicole Paultre Bell. "I told her to keep calm and be strong," he said.

Attorney Sanford Rubenstein, who was Louima's lawyer and is representing the two survivors of the Bell shooting, said Louima felt the need to speak out now.

"It is very important for Abner Louima to stand by other victims just as he was given strength by those who marched for him," Rubenstein said.

Bell, 23, was gunned down and his pals Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield were badly wounded Nov. 25 after a bachelor bash at a strip joint in South Jamaica, Queens.

As the Queens district attorney launched an investigation, cops rounded up friends of the victims on unrelated charges - and further antagonized a mostly black neighborhood seething with anger over the shooting of three unarmed men.

Yesterday, Rep. Gregory Meeks and 75 other clergy and community leaders called for the end of what they called the "parallel investigation" and for the ouster of NYPD Chief Anthony Izzo, who was incharge of the undercover unit that killed Bell.

"We feel that there must be somebody held accountable," Meeks (D-Queens) said. "Since you have failed us, Mr. Izzo, it's time for you to go."

Bishop Lester Williams, who was supposed to marry Bell and Paultre, said the police investigation is being done by a "rogue group of policemen who are doing things that are not sanctioned by this city."

"They are not being questioned at a precinct because if they were, their attorneys would get involved," Williams said. "I think it's reprehensible and is a violation of our constitutional rights. The police seem to think they can do what they want, like it's a police state."

Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne declined to comment on calls for Izzo's resignation and insisted there was "no parallel inquiry."

"What is happening, appropriately, is that IAB [Internal Affairs Bureau] is investigating the incident and turning over all the information they find to the Queens district attorney," he said.

Guzman and Benefield claim cops opened fire without identifying themselves as police. The officers said they believed Guzman was armed and fired in self-defense after Bell clipped an undercover cop with his car. The officers who fired the fatal shots are on paid leave.

With Alison Gendar


Originally published on December 12, 2006

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