Dear Editor,
Three police officers are on trial in Queens for fatally shooting a Black man, Sean Bell, in a hail of 50 bullets fired by five officers in November 2006. The trial has entered its fifth week. The officers have been brought to book for reckless shooting, thanks to agitation from Black community leaders, and this was not the first time officers have been forced on trial for unjustified use of force. Other police trials occurred for shooting an unarmed African man in the Bronx and another unarmed African man in Manhattan. But several years later, there has been no investigation into the police shooting death of an Indo- Guyanese in Queens and no community leader has taken up the issue in spite of repeated requests from me to force the city to launch a proper investigation. Unfortunately, the Indo-Guyanese community has no equivalent of a strong leader like the charismatic and powerful Al Sharpton who can force the city to investigate the use of lethal force against minorities.
