mincooper's Blog

Alright-

don't own one and have no intentions of getting one anytime soon, however, what is it with society, are we that lonely for attention?  Was out with friends last night at various stores driving around, every single person we encountered was on their phone, and in line they were on them too and the conversations, just plain stupid.  I personally don't want to listen to someone talk about an infection they have or who they slept with while I am standing in line, those on their phones feel the need to talk louder, which trust me those who don't feel the need to have a cell phone or broadcast our lives want to hear.  The next barrier was the rudeness of people when they are being waited on telling the cashier to hold on due to they are on the phone, excuse me?  Just rude.

Signed-

One of the few considerate people in the USA.

I would just like to say Channel 2 it was in poor taste to have Tim riding on the pony on Monday's early morning segment.  Not only do I think it is wrong for humans to use animals this way, this just showed that total lack of compassion that your station has toward these animals.  Please rethink this in the future.  For those who don't think there is anything wrong with this, just think about the animals (horses in NY) that are used to do carriage rides, would you like to drag people around at night with gas fumes blowing up your nose?

Last Edited: Tuesday, 30 Sep 2008, 2:22 PM CDT

Created: Tuesday, 30 Sep 2008, 12:44 PM CDT

(KTVI - myFOXstl.com)  -- 

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- The president of St. Louis' Board of Aldermen drives a $25,000 city-purchased sedan with such luxury options as a heated leather steering wheel and seats.

And he uses the city-owned vehicle for personal use.

Those are among the claims made by State Auditor Susan Montee in reports released Tuesday on four areas of city government. She says additional reports will come later from the ongoing audit.

A citizens group requested the audit.

Montee's office also found that some city departments may be making what they term emergency purchases to buy such things as a sno-cone machine, fleece blankets and magnetic baseball schedules.

I am sure that this audit is going to uncover more wasteful spending.  How difficult is it for the city to realize that they are using taxpayers money.  If this was a corporation, I would not care, that is their money, this is a city, which gets a majority of its money from the taxpayers.  I think that the employees who have abused this should be fired.  What a disgrace. 

Doing some googling we came across these.  Some will take your breath away, there is one of someone jumping, those are the hardest for me.  Hit enter to move through the pictures in the slideshow.

http://www.strangecosmos.com/images/content/136846.pps

Rover, call me an ambulance — dog calls 911 

 The German shepherd remembered his training and saved his owner's life Associated Press

PHOENIX - "Man's best friend" doesn't go far enough for Buddy — a German shepherd who remembered his training and saved his owner's life by calling 911 when the man had a seizure. And it's not the first time Buddy has been there for owner Joe Stalnaker, a police officer said Sunday. On a recording of the 911 call Wednesday, Buddy is heard whimpering and barking after the dispatcher answers and repeatedly asks if the caller needs help. "Hello, this is 911. Hello ... Can you hear me? Is there somebody there you can give the phone to," says the dispatcher, Chris Scott. Police were sent to Stalnaker's home, and after about three minutes Buddy is heard barking loudly when the officers arrived. Scottsdale police Sgt. Mark Clark said Stalnaker spent two days in a hospital and recovered from the seizure.  "It's pretty incredible," Clark said. "Even the veteran dispatchers — they haven't heard of anything like this." Clark said police are dispatched whenever 911 is called, but that Stalnaker's address was flagged in Scottsdale's system with a notification that a trained assistance dog could call 911 when the owner was incapacitated. Clark said Stalnaker adopted Buddy at the age of 8 weeks from Michigan-based Paws with a Cause, which trains assistance dogs, and trained him to get the phone if he began to have seizure symptoms. Buddy, now 18 months old, is able press programmed buttons until a 911 operator is on the line, Clark said. Clark said Buddy has made two other 911 calls when Stalnaker was having seizures. He said Stalnaker's seizures are the result of a head injury he suffered about 10 years ago during a military training exercise. Stalnaker was not listed in the phone book, and he did not immediately respond to a request through police for an interview. 

I can't believe this, but have to share it due to I am a big animal supporter.  Can we as human think of any more ways to harm God's creatures?  I post this to educate not for shock value.

August 21, 2008
NEW YORK -- One of the most barbaric forms of animal cruelty has an underbelly which for years has remained literally hidden in darkness: "Trunking" is dog fighting's ugly secret.
"It's just that taboo," Tio Hardiman, a Chicago-based, dog fighting consultant to the Humane Society of the United States.
Capt. Steve Shatkin of the New Jersey SPCA described trunking to Pet Pulse at the state's headquarters in New Brunswick.
"Two dogs will be thrown, literally, into the trunk of a car like this," Shatkin said, pointing to a mid-sized car in NJSPCA's parking lot. "(The) trunk is closed, and the operators either drive around for a set period of time, or just leave them in there with the trunk closed."
"And after a certain time, open the trunk, and the best man left is standing. And it's a bloody mess in there, and that's how they declare a winner."
The carcass of the defeated dog is typically tossed to the side of the road, says Hardiman, who also is a pit bull advocate.
"Once in a while I've seen it, OK?" Hardiman said. "I know some guys may have put some dogs in a trunk. They fought, and then the next thing you know they turned the music up real loud -- for about 15 minutes, maybe 30 minutes.
"And then you open up the trunk, one of the dogs might be dead, the other one might be mangled up."
Across the country, Pet Pulse conducted numerous interviews with officers in animal control and law enforcement specializing in animal cruelty cases. Due to the nature of trunking, relatively few had even handled a trunking case first-hand.


For some dog fighters, trunking is a chosen method because it is so difficult for police to detect, in fact nearly impossible, authorities say. Typically it can neither be seen nor heard.

"(For) law enforcement driving by, it wouldn't raise an eyebrow," said NJSPCA Cpl. Al Peterson, whose beat includes known dog fighting ghettos in the crime-ridden city of Newark.

Inner cities are prime trunking territory, with participants partial to larger cars with spacious trunks, Peterson says.

"I found out about it through police intelligence coming out of North Carolina," Peterson said of how the re-born crime hit his radar. "The criminal element never sleeps. They're always thinking of some kind of way to do something to get it done."

Trunking has existed for at least two decades, authorities say. Yet not a single agency contacted by Pet Pulse could claim one arrest, much less a conviction for trunking.

"It's out there," Shatkin said. "And it's a technique that amateur, urban dog fighters will use as a way to thwart law enforcement. It's just another creative, brutal method of dog fighting."

While fighting dogs in trunks is not new in concept, the term, "trunking," is, Hardiman says. The results of a Google search proved it with barely a notable entry surfacing after entering "trunking" and "dog fighting."

During his younger days, Hardiman says he ran Chicago's mean streets and associated with dog fighters. While the illegal blood sport is still rampant in the Windy City, Hardiman says trunking is more prevalent on the East Coast.

"Nobody's heard about it," said Hardiman, as he walked through the West Side of Chicago's Austin section with his own pit bull. "This is the first time that it's really come up again, and it's resurfaced just a little bit."

Urban youth, often unable to afford entertainment, sometimes use trunking for amusement at the expense of helpless dogs, Hardiman says.
"If your music is blasting, you can actually be driving around. So it's like a thrill," Hardiman said. "It's exciting just to have those dogs gorging each other up in the trunk, while you're smoking a blunt or something like that."

But the web of dog fighting's underground hierarchy is best defined by three levels, according to Hardiman.

"Level One:" one-on-one street fights arranged by teens, with little or no money gambled.

"Level Two:" fights in abandoned buildings or garages, often involving those with gang affiliations, with hundreds to thousands of dollars wagered.

"Level Three:" sophisticated dog rings, like Michael Vick's, carried out in a pit with spectators, handlers and a referee, with up to hundreds of thousands of dollars at stake.

Trunking typically happens on Level Two, and can serve as a dog-fighting training ground for dogs and breeders, Hardiman says.

"You can definitely build your reputation, because every time you come out of the trunk and you don't have many scars on you, you won the fight," Hardiman said.

"Once they let you out of the trunk, your reputation gets bigger, and bigger and bigger because you had the baddest fighting dog."

Recalling a cruelty call in Norfolk, Va., Mark Kumpf, a former animal control officer for the city, told Pet Pulse he confronted juveniles suspected of trunking.

"The dogs had some clearly fresh injuries on them. And we were able, through our investigation, to determine that they had actually placed the dogs in a vehicle a short time before and allowed the dogs to fight," said Kumpf, who now is the president of the National Animal Control Association in Kansas City.

Reports of trunking also stem out of Indianapolis.

Stacey Coleman, president of Indy Pit Crew, a pit bull advocacy group in Indianapolis, says some known gang members told her they were involved in trunking.

"It was something that these particular young people were aware of," Coleman told Pet Pulse. "They suggested they had participated in it."

To end the streets' appeal of dog fighting, Hardiman helps rehabilitate former dog fighters and their pit bulls through the Humane Society's Campaign to End Dog Fighting. A few of the program's participants and their dogs roamed the streets with Hardiman during Pet Pulse's interview.

One of those men -- a former dog fighter -- says he no longer fights dogs and advocates against the practice.

Wanting to only be referred to as "Marco," he recounted his dog fighting days, telling Pet Pulse the mutilation of innocent dogs had only bothered him for one reason in particular.

"You lost your money," he said.

While the loss pinched Marco's wallet, Pet Pulse asked if the dogs' injuries ever hurt his conscience.

"Back then you didn't really care. You trained it, fed it to do what it do," Marco said.

Marco's candor continued with an answer about if, at that time, he had any feelings at all for a dog maimed in a fight.

"No, you can't have no feelings or you wouldn't fight it," Marco said.

That lack of empathy toward the canine victims represents a prevailing attitude among those involved in trunking, Hardiman says.

"Guys are just in the swing of things, guys in the community," he said, adding they figure, "Hey look, it sounds like it's something good to do, fight some dogs in a trunk, OK?"

The HSUS told Pet Pulse that national statistics on animal cruelty convictions from dog fighting are not kept. While the NJSPCA says that since the Vick case, tips from the public have increased but dog fighting arrests have not.

"I don't think we're going to just be able to put the brakes on it," Shatkin said. "We just have to persevere, and we have to continue our efforts in law enforcement."

Until police make better inroads, trunking will remain cloaked in darkness.

To report suspected trunking, dog fighting or other illegal animal fighting, call 877-TIP-HSUS.

The following is a link to a video on this topic.  Some of the material is graphic.

http://www.zootoo.com/petnews/hiddenindarknesst
runkingisdogf

Hello all-

just curious about the following.....

I work in HR during the day and then part time maybe 3 days at a retail establishment.  What is it with the public?  I am seeing more and more people enter our store 5 minutes before we close and we politely tell them we are closing in 5 minutes and they acknowledge it and then they are the ones still in the store 30 minutes after we close and get this, they don't even buy anything......  I personally also love the ones that come up and literally almost break the front door trying to get in after we are closed.  We have 2 doors and if one is locked they try their hardest to open it and then do the same with the other.  Or better yet, it is really necessary to be waiting in line at opening time?  I guess I understand around holidays, but on a beautiful day, there is a group of people standing outside only to come in.

What is the appropriate time for a store to close?  9, 9:30?  When we close at 9:00, they think you should be open til 9:30 or 10????????

OK  here is the scenario-

I am an HR Manager and part of my job is filling positions.  I reach out to applicants who apply and schedule interviews.  I have found that when I do talk with candidates they are clueless about positions they have applied for and want you to discuss with them the job and pay and basically tell them what was in the ad. 

What are your thoughts on this?  If you are applying for a position, would you not know what you are applying for?  Keep records of what you are applying for?

JERUSALEM - An Israeli couple going on a European vacation remembered to take their duty-free shopping and their 18 suitcases, but forgot their 3-year-old daughter at the airport, police said Monday.

The couple and their five children were late for a charter flight to Paris Sunday and made a mad dash to the gate. In the confusion, their daughter got lost.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said a policeman found her wandering in the duty-free area at Ben-Gurion airport, Israel's bustling main international air portal. He said the officer alerted airline staff, but the flight had already taken off.

Israeli media said the parents were an ultra-Orthodox Jewish couple but did not give their names.

Rosenfeld said the parents were unaware they had boarded the aircraft with only four children instead of five until they were informed by cabin staff after 40 minutes in the air.

The child, accompanied by an airline staffer, took the next flight to Paris where she was safely reunited with her parents.

Rosenfeld said police would question the couple when they return from vacation, on suspicion of parental negligence.

Associated Press

OK

here it goes.  I am an HR Manager during the day and see hundreds of resumes come across my desk.  The one thing I have been seeing a lot of lately is individuals who have enrolled to these online schools to get their undergraduate degrees or graduate degrees.    In speaking with other HR Managers it appears that many agree that these online programs are not viewed to highly by HR or Hiring Managers.  Here are a few reasons why:

1.  How difficult is it to take one of these?  I admit I took one in college ( a telecourse) (I went to a university in person) and vowed I would never again take another, why?  I did not learn a darn thing, I learned how to look up answers and write papers from notes I transcribed.  In my opinion a telecourse and online course are one in the same, no interaction what so ever.  In a classroom you interact with the professor and other students.

2.  Are we that lazy?  I love that these schools sell you that you can do this whenever,   Nothing was gotten the easy way, it takes work to get something, not sitting on your butt in front of a computer and copying stuff down. 

What are you thoughts?

Went to a  very informative forum last night on the Commercial Dog Breeding industry and puppy mills.  The organization OPSPOT (Operation Stop Pet Over Population www.opspot.org) hosted the event.  There was a panel of speakers (expert on Puppymills (www.nopuppymills.com), an ASPCA inspector, and individuals from www.maal.org (lobbyist who work to help these poor animals)  who spoke on this underground industry that very few people know about.  Oprah did a show on this recently and American's were quite shocked at what they saw.  Missouri along with Pennsylvania are the top states for housing these commerical breeding faciliites.  There are an estimated 10,000 commerical breeders in the US who breed irresponsibly.  On the panel was a ASPCA Investigator who has the job of going on these breeders property and the stories he told made you crinch.  There are responsible breeders out there, those are the ones that if you don't like the dog or it does not work out they want it back, the commerical breeders who sell to the pet stores don't want their dogs back and just try and return a dog to a pet store there are so many loop holes in their contracts it is sickening.  Jana Kohl has written a book that has just been release  A Rare Breed of Love which gives an indepth look at this industry.  We need to stop this from happening, imagine living in a cage your whole live and all you are doing is producing litter after litter never smelling grass or being able to walk around.  Contact your legislators and urge them to make this a priority.  The funny thing about these people is that they mass produce these animals, but then can go to church and claim that they are not doing anything wrong.  A society that spends billions on their animals each year is allowing this to happen?

AMSTETTEN, Austria (CNN) -- A 73-year-old who admitted holding his daughter captive for 24 years and fathering her seven children appeared in court Tuesday as Austrians struggled to come to terms with its second horrific abduction case in two years.

Josef Fritzl is due in court after admitting raping his daughter and fathering her seven children.

Josef Fritzl, a retired electrical engineer, faces a possible 15 years in prison if charged and convicted of rape.

In court, he appeared calm and showed no emotion, according to an Austrian reporter present. Fritzl spoke, saying that he wanted to redeem himself, the journalist said.

The female judge presiding said he would be kept in custody, the reporter said, but gave no indication for how long.

Fritzl was on Monday moved from the town of Amstetten -- where he kept his now 42-year-old daughter Elisabeth and three of her children in the cellar of his house -- to the courthouse in nearby St. Poelten, the provincial capital of Lower Austria.

The central European country's newspapers were filled with details of the case, which has shocked the nation.

"Horror father breaks silence," "Hiding a double life without wife knowing" and "Soundproof dungeon behind 300kg steel door" were headlines in Die Kronen Zeitung.

It also ran a story questioning how people could survive deprived of sunlight for so long.

Die Presse went with "The man who deceived the world" and also accused authorities of allowing the atrocities to happen.

Police are searching other properties owned by Fritzl to make sure he was not keeping another captives, The Associated Press reported.

However, police said it was unlikely he would have had time to maintain other such cellar cells, AP said.

Thomas Birgfellner, a reporter with Austrian broadcaster ORF, said there was strong belief that Fritzl -- who installed an electronic security door in the cellar -- must have had help from other people.

"Everyone has said he could not do it alone. He could not install it alone, and now they have to investigate if there were some other people who assisted him," Birgfellner told CNN.

Timeline

1977: Elisabeth Fritzl claims she was first abused by her father Josef when she was 11 years old.

1984: Elisabeth is allegedly lured into the cellar of her house and drugged and handcuffed by her father. She is forced to write letters saying she has run away from home.

1988: Her first child, Kerstin, is born.

1989: Elisabeth gives birth to her first son, Stefan.

1993: A baby, nine-month-old Lisa, is left on the doorstep of the Fritzl house, with a letter asking Josef and his wife Rosemarie to look after her.

1994: Another child, Monika, arrives with another similar note and is adopted by the Fritzls.

1996: Elisabeth gives birth to twins, but one dies after three days. Josef allegedly burnt the body.

1997: Alexander, the surviving twin, is moved upstairs to join rest of family.

2003: Another letter from Elisabeth arrives saying she had a second son, Felix, the previous year. he is also raised in the cellar.

2008:

April 19: Kerstin is taken to hospital after falling serious ill, and doctors discover that her grandfather is in fact her father.

April 20-27: Josef releases Elisabeth along with Stefan and Felix and tells wife they have chosen to return home.

April 26: Police pick up Josef and Elisabeth near the Amstetten hospital where Kerstin is being treated.

April 27: Josef admits his guilt following Elisabeth's statement.

April 28: Police search the family's house and discover cramped cellar with special security door.

April 29: Josef Fritzl appears in court.

CNN's Phil Black reported from Amstetten that Austrian police were trying to deflect comparisons with the case of Natascha Kampusch, who 18 months ago escaped from a basement cell outside Vienna in which she had been held since she was kidnapped as a 10-year old on her way to school.

"There are similarities on the surface but police say this case is more extreme, and they do not believe that there is anything darker or more rotten here in Austria than in any other country," Black said.

He said the police were now trying to work out how Fritzl was able to deceive the authorities and his neighbors for so long.

"They are trying to work out how he was able to construct this cellar with nobody noticing, how he was able to feed this hidden family. This why they are being so public, making his name and images available so people can come forward to help," Black said.

The three children held in the cellar were still in hospital on Tuesday having treatment following their horrific ordeal.

The eldest of the children, 19-year-old Kerstin Fritzl, was in an induced coma.

It was her serious condition that led to the unraveling of the case at the weekend when her alleged father Josef -- who she thought was her grandfather -- was forced to take her to the hospital in Amstetten, west of Vienna.

Elisabeth said one of her seven children died at an early age to due inadequate care, while three were adopted by Josef and his wife Rosemarie and lived upstairs in the house.

Three were kept with her in the cramped cellar: Kerstin and sons Stefan, 18, and Felix, 5.

The boys are said to be doing "surprisingly well and in good health" in the circumstances but are still undergoing medical treatment, Black said.

Albert Reiter, head of the hospital's intensive care unit, confirmed to CNN that the children were still receiving "intensive medical treatment."

The breakthrough in the case began a week ago when Kerstin Fritzl fell seriously ill with convulsions.

Her mother Elisabeth begged Josef to take her to a hospital, which he did.

Josef told his wife that their missing daughter had dropped off ailing Kerstin on the doorstep with a note asking that they get her medical care.

Josef took her to the town's clinic with the note, but doctors needed more information to determine why the young woman was unconscious and having violent convulsions.

So they contacted police, who asked the local media to report on Kerstin's situation in an effort to find the missing mother.

Elisabeth and her two sons saw the reports on the television provided to them in their 100-square-foot living quarters, police spokesman Franz Polzer said, and "they desperately pleaded with their father so they could be taken (to the hospital)... (and) do something for the 19-year-old."

Josef Fritzl agreed, and took all three of the remaining captives out of the basement, explaining to Rosemarie and the rest of the family that Elisabeth had reappeared with her two children after an absence of 24 years.

He took them to the hospital and, at some point, authorities there realized something was wrong. Police picked up both Josef and Elisabeth on Saturday near the hospital and brought them into the station for questioning.

Josef would not talk to police but Elisabeth began to tell her story once she was convinced she would never have to see her father again, and that her children would be safe.

"The young woman saw the window for her freedom and she entrusted herself to the criminal officer and began to talk about the 24 years in captivity," Polzer said.

Her story, Polzer said, was "a description that even for the experienced criminal officers (was) almost devastating."

She told police her father began sexually abusing her at age 11. On August 8, 1984 -- weeks before she was reported missing -- her father enticed her into the basement, where he drugged her, put her in handcuffs, and locked her in a room, she told police.

For the next 24 years, she was constantly raped by her father, resulting in seven children, six of whom survived, she said, according to the police statement.

She told police she gave birth to twins in 1996, but one of the babies died a few days later as a result of neglect, and Josef Fritzl removed the infant's body and burned it.

Elisabeth told police that only her father supplied her and her children with food and clothing, and that she did not think her mother, Rosemarie, knew anything about their situation.

Police continued to question Josef Fritzl and he led police to the underground cellar on Sunday. A day later, he confessed to raping his daughter, keeping her and their children in captivity, and burning the body of the dead infant in an oven in the house.

Pictures of the cellar released by the police show a narrow hallway that a normal-sized adult could barely walk down. The hallway leads to a tiny bathroom, spotless and sparsely decorated with tiny but colorful rugs and decals.

A three-foot-high hidden door led to the rooms in the cellar accessible only by an electronic passcode that Josef possessed and provided to police. Polzer said the door "was very, very well concealed and you wouldn't have been able to find it even if you were looking for it."

Josef Fritzl, who police described as an authoritarian figure, forbade anyone in the family from entering the cellar.

CNN's Fred Pleitgen and Ben Brumfield contributed to this report.

Copyright 2008 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.

From another newstation-- A judge acquitted three New York Police Department detectives of all charges Friday morning in the shooting death of an unarmed man in a 50-bullet barrage, hours before he was to be married. Protesters react Friday to the verdict in the Sean Bell case outside of the Queens County Criminal Courts Building.   

Detectives Michael Oliver and Gescard Isnora were found not guilty of charges of manslaughter, assault and reckless endangerment in the death of Sean Bell, 23, and the wounding of two of his friends. Detective Marc Cooper was acquitted of reckless endangerment.

Justice Arthur Cooperman said he found problems with the prosecution's case. He said some prosecution witnesses contradicted themselves, and he cited prior convictions and incarcerations of witnesses. He also cited the demeanor of some witnesses on the stand. As the judge read his decision, Nicole Paultre Bell -- Sean Bell's fiancee before his death -- ran from the courtroom, saying, "I've got to get out of here."

The announcement immediately sparked anger among some in the crowd outside the courthouse, but the protests were generally orderly.  One woman shouted at a black police officer, "How can you be proud to wear that uniform? Stand down! Stop working for the masters!" Sean Bell was black. Patrick Lynch, president of the New York Police Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, said "there's no winners, there's no losers" in the case. "We still have a death that occurred. We still have police officers that have to live with the fact that there was a death involved in their case," Lynch said. But, he added, the verdict assured police officers that they will be treated fairly in New York's courts. This case was not about justice," said Leroy Gadsden, chair of the police/community relations committee of the Jamaica Branch NAACP. "This case was about the police having a right to be above the law. If the law was in effect here, if the judge had followed the law truly, these officers would have been found guilty.

"This court, unfortunately, is bankrupt when it comes to justice for people of color."

The Rev. Al Sharpton, who has been advising Bell's fiancee and family, left the courthouse about an hour after the verdict without making a public statement. He had called for calm Wednesday. Mayor Michael Bloomberg issued a statement saying, "An innocent man lost his life, a bride lost her groom, two daughters lost their father, and a mother and a father lost their son. No verdict could ever end the grief that those who knew and loved Sean Bell suffer." However, he said, the legal system must be respected. "America is a nation of laws, and though not everyone will agree with the verdicts and opinions issued by the courts, we accept their authority." Bloomberg also said he had spoken briefly with Paultre Bell on Wednesday and agreed with her on the need to ensure similar incidents would not occur in the future.

Bell, 23, was killed just before dawn on his wedding day, November 25, 2006. He and several friends were winding up an all-night bachelor party at the Kalua Club in Queens, a strip club that was under investigation by a NYPD undercover unit looking into complaints of guns, drugs and prostitution. Undercover detectives were inside the club, and plainclothes officers were stationed outside. Witnesses said that about 4 a.m., closing time, as Bell and his friends left the club, an argument broke out. Believing that one of Bell's friends, Joseph Guzman, was going to get a gun from Bell's car, one of the undercover detectives followed the men and called for backup.

What happened next was at the heart of the trial, prosecuted by the assistant district attorney in Queens. Bell, Guzman and Trent Benefield got into the car, with Bell at the wheel. The detectives drew their weapons, said Guzman and Benefield, who testified that they never heard the plainclothes detectives identify themselves as police. Bell was in a panic to get away from the armed men, his friends testified. But the detectives thought Bell was trying to run down one of them, according to their lawyers, believed that their lives were in danger and started shooting. n a frantic 911 call, police can be heard saying, "Shots fired. Undercover units involved."

A total of 50 bullets were fired by five NYPD officers. Only three were charged with crimes. Oliver, who reloaded his semiautomatic in the middle of the fray, fired 31 times, Isnora fired 11 times, and Cooper, whose leg was brushed by Bell's moving car, fired four times, the NYPD said. No gun was found near Bell or his friends. Soon after his death, Bell's fiancee, Nicole Paultre, legally changed her name to Nicole Paultre Bell. She is raising the couple's two daughters, ages 5 and 1. "I tell [them] that Daddy's in heaven now," she said. "He's watching over us. He's our guardian angel. He's going to be here to protect us and make sure nothing happens to us." Detectives Endowment Association President Michael Palladino said forensic and scientific evidence presented during the seven-week trial contradicts the testimony of prosecution witnesses.

But Paultre Bell's father, Lester Paultre, said, "For those naysayers who say the police was doing their job, they should imagine their child in that car being shot by the police for no reason."  Paultre Bell, Guzman and Benefield have filed a wrongful-death lawsuit in federal court that has been stayed pending the outcome of the criminal trial. Guzman was shot 16 times, and four bullets, too dangerous to remove, remain in his body, according to his lawyer, Sanford Rubenstein. Federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York have been monitoring the trial. In the event of an acquittal, it is likely authorities would conduct a review to determine whether there were any civil rights violations.