Queens was put to the test in a tragic incident that occurred on November 25, 2006 when Sean Bell, on his wedding day, was killed and two of his companions seriously wounded in a 50-bullet barrage fired by police officers at the unarmed men.

Last Friday, three of the five policemen whose bullets killed Bell and wounded Trent Benefield and Joseph Guzman were indicted in the case that heightened the City’s racial tensions and made us reluctantly relive the ‘99 death of unarmed immigrant Amadou Diallo.

As I write this on the weekend, we do not yet know the charges which shall be unsealed on Monday. The grand jury had an array of charges to consider: second-degree murder, manslaughter or criminally negligent homicide stemming from Bell’s death; and attempted murder, assault or reckless endangerment in the wounding of Benefield and Guzman.

In the four months since the shooting the city waited and watched, calmer this time than in the Diallo case because of several factors. First there were the black Queens elected officials who calmly but cautiously expressed faith in our system of justice and called for patience. There was and is the Queens District Attorney Dick Brown who in his just over 5-foot stature stands tall among men of integrity. There was and is Mayor Michael Bloomberg who in contrast with Rudy Giuliani, the always-side-with-the-cops Mayor during the Diallo killing, was out front expressing profound sympathy and calling for justice and time to allow the process to do its job. Finally — and I’ll get criticism for this one – there was the Reverend Al Sharpton, the unofficial but effective spokesperson for justice for minorities, who although effectively demanding justice, more effectively kept a lid a potential explosion.

Vigils, not violence, seemed to quietly guide the protests of the most of the black leaders and the community who witnessed the slaying of Sean Bell, the young groom.
The rest of the path is not easy. A Queens jury will be asked to judge the guilt of the three cops who may have acted contrary to procedure, using poor judgment and/or excess force, but likely with no criminality or malice in their hearts.

Whatever the outcome, the people and leaders of the Southeast Queens community, DA Brown, Al Sharpton, the Mayor and the city can be expected to seek and accept the justice of a less- than-perfect jury system that gets it right most of the time.

All we can do is watch the process and demand that the police continually re-evaluate the training that has again brought tragedy to the city and questions to its department.

JUDGING THE JUDGES
Yes, I am a believer in our system of justice. I acknowledge its imperfection but it’s the best system out there. The people basically also have faith in the system, and it serves them well.

So what does our State Legislature do when the system works? They stop giving raises to the very judges who are the foundation of the system. In another attempt to pocket more for themselves, legislators have held judicial raises hostage.

Last week, Chief Judge Judith Kaye urged business leaders to lobby the state Legislature to provide a desperately needed pay raise for judges. Kaye was recently reappointed the State’s chief judge by Governor Eliot Spitzer.
She told a business breakfast, “With the present salary situation, let me tell you, it has become increasingly difficult to attract the best judges and keep them.”

Kaye called for State judges to have their salary tied to Federal judges or have automatic increases.

In 1999, the NYS Legislature re-established parity between Federal District Court Judges and New York Supreme Court Justices. But the Legislature’s failure to adequately grant increases since then, while Federal judges received annual increases, has caused the state’s average salary of $135,000 to lag behind federal judges’ pay by nearly 25 percent.

What is the message to the judges who are asked to remain on the bench while first year lawyers are regularly hired with salaries higher than theirs?

This writer, this paper and justice itself, all call upon the State Legislature to immediately right the financial wrongs being done to N.Y. State judges. Certainly the maintenance of a quality judicial branch of government deserves a small portion of the funds that Albany disperses to their own favorite projects.

The courts work well. Judges do their job. Let’s compensate them fairly.

You be the judge!

Michael Schenkler can be reached via this contact form.