Stephen Nessen, Reporter, WNYC News
Stephen Nessen reports for the WNYC Newsroom and can often be heard live on Morning Edition.
5 Years Later, Sean Bell's Fiancée Revisits Scene of Shooting
Friday, November 25, 2011 - 12:00 AM
Nicole Paultre Bell
(Stephen Nessen/WNYC)
Standing in the rain, Nicole Paultre Bell returned to the street where her life changed. She examined a shiny new silver gate that she remembered was dented with bullet holes. It was here that her fiancé Sean Bell was shot 50 times by undercover police officers.
For many, his name is synonymous with senseless police violence. The 23-year-old was killed outside of a Queens Strip club in the early hours of November 25, 2006. Plain-clothed officers believed they’d heard the word “gun” spoken from someone in Bell’s party. Bell was killed, and two of his friends were badly injured. His fiancée was left just that, a fiancée.
Nicole Paultre Bell, now 27, has two daughters from Bell, Jordyn, 5, and Jada, 8. She recently moved out of her father’s home in Jamaica, Queens, where she’d lived with Bell, into her own place in Far Rockaway. She has started a non-profit called When It’s Real It’s Forever, and runs a little league team named after Sean Bell.
On Friday, she will head to the corner of Liverpool Street (now named Sean Bell Way) and 94th Avenue, to memorialize Sean Bell, as she does every year. Friends, family and community members will bring out laminated photos, candles and will ring a bell 50 times at 4:10 a.m., about the time Sean Bell was shot.
“That’s my time to think about everything that we’ve been through, everything that Sean went through that night just trying to make it home to his family, trying to make it home to get married the next day,” she said recently. “It really sets in at that point. And it’s hard, but it is for his memory, and for other people who fell victim to senseless violence.”
Nicole wears a small metal pin on her jacket that reads, “Sean Bell See You Later.” She said he always said that to people, especially on the phone. “If you said ‘Bye’ and hung up, he’d call you right back and say, ‘Don’t say that, say, see you later.’ We even put that on his tombstone. That was something that he lived by.”
Comments [15]
To John from office.
It doesn't matter. When Sean Bell and his crew saw the lights flashing from a marked police car, the truth would have came out. And once again, everybody would have walked away alive. This is the point here.
More excuses for bad behavior. The carr was the weapon, it was not speeding off.
Even if those guys were out there trying to pick up hookers,my conclusion is that the police should not be shooting at people because of their perceived low moral values. If the car sped off, those detectives was supposed to call for a marked police car to pick them up, give them a description of the vehicle and be done with it. Everybody would have went home safely.
The rage people are expressing is really sad. Someone was murdered by the police, that is fact. To spew venom and hatred towards his fiance, and to disparage her very being is truly sick, and hateful.
And sad. You should be ashamed of yourself.
And what right do you have making references to the color of the police in this case? Who cares what race the cops were!
Really sad.
Sean Bell was not an innocent victim. He was a person armed with at least a motor vehicle leaving a strip club in a dangerous neighborhood. Why is WNYC invested in promoting the myth of the innocent bridegroom attacked by the "evil police"? It just doesn't square with reality, doesn't that bother WNYC at all?
I'd like to see more media coverage of a little recognized additional tragedy highlighted by this story: unmarried relationships like Mr. and Ms. Bell's are not recognized in wrongful death cases. More on that here:
http://unmarried.org/blog/2010/07/28/matrimania-makes-some-deaths-count-more-some-survivors-count-less/
Bell was armed, with an automobile. If you beleive an automobile is not dangerous, go to Flatbush Ave and walk in front of one, and see what happens.
All parties involved were at fault, from the friend who made the gun sign to the other club goer to the police LT. who hid in the car when the shotting started.
I give up, maybe we should elect Nicole president, hey why not. Maybe we can bury Sean in Arlington and name a few more streets after him.
The good part of this is that years from now, no one will care.
Fuva, I followed the trial very closely. I know you prefer to believe that evil policemen (some non white) were looking to shoot innocent black men going to church, (after the strip club), but no, the facts are there, the past criminal records are there. I am not saying they should have been shot, I am saying that they do not deserve to be held up as heros.
We are moving into a time where the police are not going to escape punishment when they do something wrong. Granted when you see a white boy get clubbed or a white girl get pepper sprayed in her face the majority is outraged and things will happen. Still you can see a black male get shot, while handcuffed, lying on his stomach, by a police officer and have it filmed...and that cop will just get a suspension. For real change a black cop will have to pump 20-30 bullets into a young white boy/girl. Things will change after that. I find myself praying that it does happen. I TRULY DO !
CAUTION: Respond to the inane, irrelevant comments of 'john at the office' at your own risk. His consistent irrationality (How does he know where they were going? If they WERE going to where he claims they were going, this warrants them being shot multiple times and killed when unarmed?) has left him with the credibility of the troll he has become.
If it was a white guy from a nice white neighborhood shot to death with 51 bullets discharged by the police it would be looked at very differently. That is a fact and that is all you gotta know.
Unfortunately people from underprivelaged neighborhoods are treated very differently by law enforcement, sometimes with just cause. But killing someone leaves a heavy mark on a community.
"That’s my time to think about everything that we’ve been through, everything that Sean went through that night just trying to make it home to his family"
Sorry again, he was on his way to look for hookers with his buddies. Nicole is just sad she is locked out of any potential claims because she was not married to him yet. Have you noticed that Al Sharpton is no longer involved, that because there is no money to be made here.
What exactly qualifies her to run for office?? Why does WNYC take this seriously??
Oh please, while the shooting may have been problematic and there is a question if the vehicle moving towards the officers called for deadly force, but lets not nominate Sean Bell for sainthood.
He and his buddys were out getting wasted before his marriage and were on their way to look for prositutes and all of the so called victims here here had criminal records and are looking to cash in on the civil suits. Sorry, Sean is no hero here. Just another poorly raised and groundless youth.
Why are you referring to Sean Bell as "Sean?" Do you refer to Ray Kelly as "Ray?" No.
Same w/ Nicole Bell. "Why does Nicole want to run for office?" "Well, Nicole thinks..."
These aren't children, friend. These are people who have experienced tragedy. Stop and think.
As for the assessment that the most significant thing abut the Sean Bell shooting is that it hasn't recurred, the issue isn't the 51 bullets. It's the police culture of intimidation, harassment and overreaction that still plays out in black and Latino communities and increasingly into white communities. And it still leads to the misapplication of deadly force.
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