The city council will vote today on whether to rename a Queens street in memory of Sean Bell, who was gunned down by 50 police bullets the morning of his wedding.
The 23-year-old groom-to-be was in his car parked outside a strip club on Liverpool Street in Jamaica, having just left a bachelor party with his pals, when he was shot. Bell was unarmed. His death sparked outrage and protests in New York and across the country as citizens called for reform in the police department.
Now the city council is mulling whether to rename a portion of Liverpool Street, where Bell took his last breath, Sean Bell Way, according to The New York Post.
After the shooting, undercover cops investigating a prostitution ring at the club said they heard Bell's friend saying something about getting a gun moments after engaging in a heated argument with someone. Then Bell and his friend went to the car.
Last year, a judge acquitted three detectives of all charges in the Bell case.
Now the president of the detectives union, Michael Palladino, is calling the proposal to rename the street for Bell "disgraceful," reports the Post.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, who has led many of the protests in Bell's name over the last few years, says the proposal has nothing to do with getting back at cops and is all about honoring the memory of a young, unarmed man whose life was cut short.
Local
"No one is seeing this as a statement against police except Mr. Palladino," Sharpton told the Post.
