Al Sharpton pleaded not guilty to a charge of disorderly conduct yesterday. He was arrested, along with about 30 others, during a May protest of the Sean Bell verdict, prior to which he had threatened to "shut down New York City." Sharpton and his National Action Network also threatened to protest at the MLB All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium, but decided against it because he is "reasonably confident" appropriate legislation will be passed. "We are not jail freaks. We don't love handcuffs," Sharpton said after his hearing. "We are trying to move toward some kind of permanent change." [EUR]

As if most New Yorkers don't already hate Al Sharpton enough, he's planning on another Sean Bell protest — the last one blocked the city's bridges and messed up traffic — during the MLB All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium. New Yorkers might be used to horrible traffic, but, seriously, don't mess with their baseball. Sharpton & Co. say the protest will go as planned unless there is some move to pass legislation to curb police violence.

"We have plans to do the same at the All-Star Game," Sharpton said. "We will seriously consider suspending our civil disobedience if we can see some legislative action."

The legislation Sharpton wants passed would reform the Civilian Complaint Review Board, require drug testing after cops fire their guns and ban arrest quotas. What do you think about Sharpton's protests? Do you think they'll bring about change or are they just a nuisance?[NYDN]

Seven NYPD officers — including the three recently cleared of all criminal wrongdoings — are now facing a variety of departmental charges from the NYPD for their actions on the night that soon-to-be groom Sean Bell was killed and his friends were wounded. They range from "firing weapons outside of departmental guidelines" to "taking police action while undercover." No immediate action can be taken on the charges, since a federal investigation is still taking place.

The lawyer for Gescard Isnora, the officer who initially confronted Bell and friends outside of a Queens strip club, downplays the charges, telling the NY Post that the department only charged the officers because the 18-month statue of limitations is almost up. After an investigation is complete, he says, the charges are usually dropped or modified. As is, the charges could lead to suspension or firing. Several civil rights leaders (one in particular) has called on the brass to fire the officers immediately. Clearly, that's not going to happen any time soon. And maybe never…

Al Sharpton, his National Action Network, and hundreds of protesters briefly made good on their promise to shut down New York City in the wake of the Sean Bell verdict by blocking traffic at the entrances to Queensboro Bridge, the Triborough Bridge, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Manhattan Bridge and the Queens-Midtown Tunnel this afternoon.

Around 3:30 p.m. they stepped onto the lanes of the Queensboro Bridge, blocking traffic for about 30 minutes. The Rev. Dock Johnson, pastor of Community Baptist Church in South Ozone Park, Queens, kneeling with both arms extended and wearing a pin-striped suit, a leather cap and sunglasses, led the protesters, who sat down in the middle of the traffic lanes. After they resisted police orders to disperse, the protesters — including Mr. Johnson — were placed in plastic handcuffs and arrested. About 100 protesters marched east on 34th Street before turning north of Second Avenue. A group of about 40 formed a line across the entrance to the Queens-Midtown Tunnel and formed a line, chanting. They blocked traffic for about 10 minutes until about 20 were arrested; the remainder continued their protest but stopped blocking traffic.

The largest protest occurred outside of police headquarters in Lower Manhattan — it ended about 20 minutes ago when police began mass arresting the protesters. [NYT]

UPDATE: Sharpton and Sean Bell's fiancee, Nicole Paultre Bell, were arrested at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge.

Sean Bell's dead and the cops have been cleared of all criminal charges for their role in his death. As finite as those two things seem — Bell's never coming back to life and the cops aren't going to jail — the situation is far from over. There's the inevitable civil case and federal investigation, which the New York Times editorial board hopes will provide "answers" that the criminal trial and subsequent verdict did not. There are the officer's jobs, which the New York Daily News editorial board thinks they should be fired from, pronto. There's the matter of police being allowed to shoot 50 rounds into the car of an unarmed person, which the New York Post editorial board thinks is A-ok.

This article reminds us, based on the dull sadness, disappointment, and resignation (as opposed to blind rage) of the black people a reporter talked to in Queens, that New York is a different place than it was during Guiliani's reign — when black folks were fighting mad after the white cops who shot Amadou Diallo 41 times were acquitted — and that Bloomberg is a very different mayor who is more invested in soothing race relations. The article also reminds us that this was a very different case. Two of the cops were black, and some think the cops simply made an error in judgment that had tragic consequences. Yet, even as some people consider what happened to Sean Bell to be a result of simple police negligence and an unfortunate series of events, others see a very clear racial link. Some people see a crime. Some people think the verdict is a cruel example of how little society values the lives of young black men. It all depends on how you look at it. I mean, Al Sharpton's planning to shut down the city. Protest songs are being written. Special investigators are being called for. Judge Arthur Cooperman's house is under 24-hour security watch. And yes, some people are filled with rage reminiscent of the aftermath of the Diallo case. They're wondering how this happened. Not only how things could have gone so horribly wrong on the night of Bell's death, but how the cops who were involved — particularly the one who fired 31 shots, got away with it.

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Al Sharpton, who's probably all emotionally conflicted right now over the Sean Bell verdict — a mixture of genuine anger and "Oh, goody! News crews! Photographers!" — got a little threatening and serious at a press conference with Sean Bell's fiancee this weekend. Before a very angry crowd in Harlem (there were shouts of "Kill the police"), Sharpton said that he would return in the coming week "to plan the day that we will close this city down," with some sort of massive display of civil disobedience. Al Sharpton threatening to shut NYC holds the same innocuous menace as Heathcliff Huxtable telling Theo, "I brought you into this world, and I can take you out," except Sharpton didn't bring NYC into this world. If anything, he's one of the city's many eccentric children/characters who could have been raised no place but here. He also can't take the city out, and he runs the risk, as he often does when he gets involved in a cause of some kind, of trivializing the issue on a national level instead of calling positive attention to it. No word on what the NYC-breaking protest will be, but if it's about solving real, systemic problems in law enforcement and not one man's ego-driven grand-standing, and if it makes people think a little harder about the reason for the protest and not about Al Sharpton himself, color me pleasantly surprised. [AP]

Unless there is some sort of extreme weather or the subways are messed up or you're looking for an affordable apartment, most days are good to live in New York City. Today is definitely not one of them. A judge, citing a "lack of witness credibility"* just acquitted three NYPD detectives of any wrongdoing in the death of 23-year-old Sean Bell, who died after plainclothes cops sprayed his car with 50 bullets as he left a Queens strip club with his friends. He was getting married to the mother of his child later that day. The cops claimed they had reason to believe that Bell was armed (he wasn't) and was planning a drive-by-shooting around the corner (sort of hard with no gun), they also said they identified themselves as law enforcement before they started shooting. Bell's friends claimed the officer never identified himself, and that they feared for their lives when they saw an armed man in street clothes running towards them.

There are going to be some very angry New Yorkers today, and for good reason. This was a tragic accident, but this verdict suggests it was a tragic, unavoidable accident and that the officers were justified in their actions. But it's not like the precedent wasn't set in New York City long before Sean Bell was killed on his wedding day. And with further proof that cops won't be punished when they make "mistakes" of this magnitude and with little effort on the city's part to solve the problem, it is sure to happen again.

*By many accounts, the prosecution's major blunders should be blamed for the acquittal.

"A bunch of young people ran up behind me quickly, Mr. Ricco recalled. They wore pins for the New Black Panther Party. "One said, 'I want to ask you a question.' They’re asking me about the case. 'How could you?'"

Anthony L Ricco, the lawyer for the detective accused of firing the opening salvo in the hail of gunfire that killed Sean Bell in 2006, is black, and he's taking a whole lot of heat over his latest case. As Ricco tells The New York Times in their recent profile of him and the trial, it's irrelevant to the outraged masses that his client, Gescard F Isnora, is also African American; that he could literally defend yet another seemingly senseless killing of a black man by the NYPD has people — even Ricco's friends and colleagues — baffled. Perhaps counterintuitively, Ricco told the Times that bigotry is actually what propelled him to accept the case.

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