Queens, NY- The plainclothes cop who fired most of the 50 shots that killed a Queens bridegroom on his wedding day stood a short distance from the crime scene, a stunned look on his face.
These pictures – taken about an hour after the deadly shooting – dramatically illustrate the early moments of a tragedy that has plunged the city into crisis.
It was still dark outside as NYPD Detective Mike Oliver and four colleagues milled about the crime scene, where 23-year-old Sean Bell was killed and two others were wounded in a 50-shot fusillade Saturday.
As forensic investigators marked the shell casings and made note of where Bell’s car collided with the police van, Oliver and other NYPD cops – some of them wearing their badges around their necks, but none wearing uniforms – watched uneasily, their hands thrust deep inside their pockets.
In another picture, Oliver is wearing a hood against the damp cold. In the foreground stands another cop in plainclothes. He is looking down on the discarded jacket of Bell’s pal Trent Benefield, who along with Joseph Guzman, was badly wounded by the gunfire.
In various pictures, the group of cops shifts a few feet, from grass to sidewalk, sidewalk to against a chain-link fence. But their grim expressions never change.
Later, when they are allowed to leave the scene, they walk past the glare of camera lights, most holding their heads up, and only one shielding his face.
Three days later, the killing ground on Liverpool St. is still filled with investigators.
More than anything, they are looking for the gun that Oliver and the undercovers staking out the Kalua Cabaret in Jamaica thought the victims were packing – a gun that may have been a deadly rumor. None of the victims was believed to have been armed.
“Nothing yet,” a city cop said yesterday as he and 25 other specialists expanded the search area some 50 yards from the crime scene to the barren ground beneath the elevated AirTrain tracks at 94th Ave. and Liverpool St.
Joined by Port Authority and MTA officers, they used specially trained dogs to search vents, trash cans and Dumpsters. While they worked, other specialists traced the path of each of the bullets in order to figure out who fired the fatal shot.