Cops: 4th Man had gun

Todays New York Post throws some very interesting new facts into the arena - not that this will have any effect on the cop-haters and racial rabble rousers who are determined to use the shooting - justified or not - as an excuse to dig black heels in for another 50 years of self-destructive, paranoid seperatism.

Apparantly cops have found a witness who saw the mystery "fourth man" holding a gun next to Bells car. If true, this will devestate the anti-police movement and show that something clearly was about to go down:

The witness identified Jean "Mo" Nelson as the gun-toting man who fled the scene of the shooting that killed groom-to-be Sean Bell outside a Queens strip club on the morning of his wedding.

Not only that, it seems to look like the cop did identify himself as such before Bell chose to use his car as a deadly weapon against him:

Witnesses, including the one who claims to have seen Nelson with the gun, allegedly also told investigators they saw the undercover cop, who later opened fire, lean over the hood of the car with badge in hand and identify himself

At this stage in the game, I'm prepared to admit that this information has not yet reached "established fact" status and that it's certainly not written in stone. The man, Jean "Mo" Nelson (I wonder if he signs his job applications that way) adamantly denies he was armed. It's interesting to note that he's not denying that he was the fourth man and was there - which is seemingly at odds with the statement made by lawyers for the 2 wounded men, Benefield and Guzman:

The wounded men, Benefield, 31, and Guzman, 26, have denied there was a fourth man, said their lawyer, Sanford Rubenstein.

"There was no fourth man - period - end of story," Rubenstein said Thursday. "I think the fact that [the cops] haven't found a gun speaks for itself."

Actually, Rubenstein, the fact that the cops haven't found a gun says one thing and one thing only - that they haven't found a gun. If five minutes of looking fails to yield a needle in a haystack does that mean there is no needle? I'm constantly amazed at the illogical rhetoric spewed by the lawyers of men like these. Although I guess that's what they're paid to do.

So Benefield and Guzman deny there was a fourth man. Nelson doesn't deny he was the fourth man but denies having a gun. Witnesses allegedly told cops he did have a gun. They also said that Oliver, the cop who was hit by Bells car and who fired the first shots, cleary identified himself as a cop and was showing his badge. This doesn't suprise me as this is generally what undercover cops do when it's time to blow their cover. What would be the point of an undercover cop confronting thugs suspected of carrying guns without giving himself the immense advantage of cop status? As far as he was concerned, each and every one of those men could have had a gun. If this was the case and he really did draw his weapon and start shooting without identifying himself, as the injured men claim, the chances are he would have been killed immediately. When it's bust-time, you identify yourself. Otherwise there's no point, unless you're suicidal. I believe by far and away the strongest possibility is that Oliver identified himself and that's when a drunken Bell thought, like most of his ghetto brethen probably would - "f*ck you cop, I'm flooring it". In which case his death was entirely self inflicted.

So what has portly shit-stirrer Al Sharpton been up to in todays press? Oh, just the usual stuff. Talking out of his ass. I tried to think of a slightly more intellectual and creative way of saying that but I couldn't.

"They took his life, but we can't let them take his legacy," said the Rev. Al Sharpton, who was repeatedly answered with cheers and "amens" from the overflow crowd. "We must give Sean a legacy; a legacy of justice; a legacy of fairness. We don't hate cops, we don't hate race, we hate wrong."

What was his legacy? That he devestated those he left behind by making the same kind of bad choices that get so many thousands of ghetto kids killed every year and did it the night before his wedding to boot? The poorest strata of ghetto black America has been coaxed into the blame game mentality by the well-meaning but naive and kak-handed left since the 60's. They refuse to look inwardly in the face of the carnage which kills so many of their youth and yet in the comparitively rare cases when cops shoot one of them dead in the process of risking their own lives to protect black communties, they explode in anger and hatred. This is understandable, but that doesn't mean those the rage is directed against deserve it.

I am of the firm belief that the anger currently on display in the black community is a form of release. They spend the whole year hearing about and being witness to the most disgusting, senseless acts of violence in their neighborhoods in which innocents, often children, are the victims just as frequently as gang members and drug dealers are. The murder of black youth happens around 6 times the rate of white youth. To hide their outrage at these deaths I believe is a matter of pride for a lot of ghetto blacks - they're not entirely comfortable talking about problems in front of white people when those problems are culture-driven and self inflicted. The same shyness miraculously morphs into militant rage when there is the chance to blame someone else, however. This is one of those times. And when it comes, it's an outlet for the bottled up anger we never saw, the anger they saved from when 2 black cops got executed by thugs on Staten Island and when thugs kill each other over parking spaces and when they do it again a couple of weeks later.

If Sean Bell is to leave a legacy let it not be another 100 years of misery in ghetto black America but the identification of thug culture as the #1 reason why so many ghetto black kids waste their own lives and those of others. Let it be the start of an era in which backward black leaders like Al Sharpton are confined to their rightful place in the trashcans of history and replaced with rational objectivists who really care about the lives of young black men. Let it be the beginning of the end of the war-torn atmosphere which forces cops into tragic situations all too often in ghetto black communities.

Although with the upcoming protest involving the New Black Panthers, the Bloods and the Crips, I don't hold out too much hope.