On November 25, 2006, undercover NYPD officers fired at least 50 rounds of bullets into a car carrying three UNARMED men of African American and Latino decent; killing one, SEAN BELL and seriously wounding two others. Bell age 23 was scheduled to be married on that fateful day.Three of the five detectives involved in the shooting went to trial on charges ranging from manslaughter to reckless endangerment. All were found not guilty.The incident has sparked fierce criticism of the NYPD as the city faces yet another murder of an unarmed African American man at the hands of those expected to protect and serve.“I AM SEAN BELL, black boys speak” is a short form documentary from Wildseed Films that highlights the voices of young black boys between the ages of 11 and 13 years old growing up in New York City.They speak openly and honestly about their reaction to the Sean Bell tragedy as well as their fears and hopes as they approach manhood in a city where the lives of young black men are often cut short, too often, and too soon.
1. What is your reaction?
2. Do You see any parallels between this incidents and any in your community?
3. What is the significance of 'grass roots community involvement'?
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I feel as though what the children are speaking is true. They talked about how our heroes are the enemies now and are killing our males for doing nothing wrong at all. These children are only children and shouldn't be feeling this type of way is such a young age. These children shouldn't have to experience fear from the cops on whether or not they are going to pull their gun out and shoot them. No, I don't know anyboody personally from my family or friends that had experienced anything like this. The 'grass roots community involvement gave these young children an outlook to express their dislike, frustration, and anger for the killing of Sean Bell by police officers into a positive activity. Instead of allowing these young males to find their own way to release energy they were allowed to protest and express their feelings; while on their own they might have started failing school or fighting with classmater or even just being disobedient to their parents. This community involvement saved these children from deciding to make a mistake in their lives that could have hurt them for the rest of their lives.
ReplyDeletemy reaction to the film is that blacks are tired of being abused and disrespected. the people in the video feel as though there is no law for blacks and not a good thing because that makes people try to take the law into their own hands and that when the murder numbers go up and prison populations increase. i find it even more moving that children were speaking on his death. when a child is aware of death, it has to be big and it will effect them for the rest of their live, those children will never forget the incident and will never believe in law. i havent heard about any incidents in my community similar to this one but im sure that their have been many simliar because there are alot of bad cops that only protect and serve for their people. the significance of the community involvement is that you can tell this kind of incident is repetitive, if something happens once people may be upset about it but they get outrage dand start protests for something unusaul that was an accident. there involvement shows there fear
ReplyDeleteThis is a very interesting story. I think it is sad and a shame that there is still racial discrimination in the U.S. Unfortunately, racial profiling is a big issue that needs to be taken care of. It is sure what the guy said about never hearing about white on white attacks from the police. It is still like this today. If a white cop comes into an altercation between a white and black male, most likely the white cop will assume the black male did something wrong. I feel like cops in my neighborhood are always doing this as well. They always pull over black people more than white people, if any. It is significant that the community gets involved to help the kids to understand what is going on and so they can avoid this happening to them. If something like this were to happen again, they should fight it hard it court.
ReplyDeleteI think that the death of Sean Bell was sad. I believe cops use that whole "it looked like he had a gun" excuse as a way to save their asses and it works. Police brutality has been going on too long and it seems like its never going to stop. I just wish that one day they will get caught doing wrong, but even still that wouldn't work because their going to be found not guilty. So far the only violence i have seen in my community came from the people involved. I haven't heard anything about the cops having anything to do with it or killing a man here; yet. The significance of the grass roots community involvement is that people are starting to see how it can be them at any minute and they're willing to do whatever it takes to try and put an end to it before another innocent young man dies at the hands of the NYPD.
ReplyDeleteMy reaction is that it is very shameful that what positive role models should be, are not living up to their name (the officers). Instead they are setting up a bad example for people in that community especially the children. The police officers need to live up to their names and actually do something for the community and set the right example. Yes, I do see parallels between this incident and the incidents that had occured in my community. I mean I never saw it with my own eyes however, I did heard about it. We need to stop crime overall, especially when you kill someone for no reason. The significance of "grass roots community" is that they are trying to teach children positive things on how to handle a situation when you are at armed by a police. It is a positive movement and it keeps people out of trouble.
ReplyDelete1) After watching the vdeo clip on Sean Belle it made me pretty upset. The knowing of how blacks are constantlly being murder for no reason, makes you pretty angry. Like the children said in the clip, its sad to know that people who were once our heros are now our murders. When your young you should be able to enjoy life; and not have to go through the trials of seeing or hearing about someone being murdered. Its like you have to watch your back when your just out walking with your friends.
ReplyDelete2) There are indeed many parallels to this incident in my community. Its the same exact way; us teenagaers can't even go out to a party without it being any drama. The rate of murders in my community have went up since the summer time, and its out of control.
3)The significance of the grass roots community involment is that it shows not only are adults affected by this type of stuff but kids are just as well. To voice your opinion on a situation helps people understand the black community alot more. Alot of blacks; especially males are misunderstood. No one ever knows the real reason for their anger, they just see him as your typical gang banger like "everyone else". The boys in the video spoke out on how they feel, regaurdless if they were misunderstood or not. Some of the young men were affected drastically by this incident.
I am upset that the cops involved with Sean Bell's death and the injuries of the other men weren't charged for their crimes. I don't understand why they would shoot at all these unarmed men. What did the officers say that these men had done to them that sparked a shootout in which a man lost his life. I thought cops could only shoot you if you shot at them, I didn't know they could just randomly start firing at people. I think nowadays so bad people are cops. Not all cops want to serve and protect the community the are just looking for their next paycheck and to live another day. I can't recall any incidents in my community where police butality lead to the death of anyone in Harrisburg. I know they are probably cases of it in Harrisburg but not put out in the news. If they is community involvement everyone could gain up on the officers or someone who does there community harm. I think instead of crying about police brutality we should also be crying out about black on black crime and crime in general.
ReplyDeleteWhite on black, and black on black crime is a never ending issue in our society. After watching the piece, I am Sean Bell I am not surprised. Events like this occur all the time in African American communities. The people who are set in place to protect and serve justice are the same people who brutally beat innocent people for less than nothing. This is an annoyance that has been going on for years. It fist started with slavery, to the mauling during the segregated period, to now just plain and simply beating/shooting us for the color of our skin. There are numerous occurances/ parallels of this nature that has occurred in my own community. Just recently the cops killed a man and later justified it as a suicide. Our community tried to do something about the issue, but no one was punished for the crime. I think it is incredible how the Grass Roots community came together to speak out about their disapproval and disgust with the events happening in their neighborhood; not many communities do that, they take what has happened and keep living life as if nothing has occurred. Events like this need to come to an end. It is killing us off, and there are lives that are not being lived to their full potential because of the ignorance of others. Also families are being torn apart
ReplyDeleteMy reaction to this to this documentary is that I am shocked about how the whole ordeal came about. I believe that those cops shouldn't have just gotten off the hook so easily because the men (particularly Sean Bell) were not armed on dangerous. They were only leaving a night club to go home so Bell could get married the next day. There have been a few incidents in the community but not as bad as the Sean Bell incident. I admit that the people in my community are not all angels and they do commit crimes, but there is no reason for a cop to shoot you in the face!!!! The significance of the grass root community involvement is that they are trying to make a change and make it so that officers that commit crimes like this will be punished. Those people in the documentary are just trying to stop the brutality and have justice served.
ReplyDelete1/ The video left me confused with many questions. Why would there be undercover NYPD shot at them with 50 round of bullets if they didn't do anything? that didn't make sense. Why would they intoxicate young kid mind with these news? wouldn't that make them grow up holding grudges against NYPD whom just trying to keep the place safe and enforce the law? wouldn't it increase more crime to America?
ReplyDelete2/the parallel between this incident and my neighborhood is that there would be gunshots in the middle of the night sometime and it left people feeling unsafe. This is call for police patrol and to keep us feel safe. What i think is that if you didn't do anything wrong, the cop wouldn't be up in your grill.
3/grass root community involvement is where people stand together for change and justice toward racism or hate crime
My reaction was shocking but these things happen because of the world we live in. The big problem is that we can't do anything about it because it's like another murder. We can't change a murderer's mind but we can help what is done to them and what makes situations like this even worst is that they can be found innocent. Yes I see parallels from their community to mine but there will be worst. We will see these types of incidents in my community but not as much because our community race issues aren't as high as they are in New York. Their significance is that their roots are aren't brought up as the way they should so they know they can't blame everything on the police because the kids will act out of hand. Since they will act like this the police treat them all like that.
ReplyDeleteI feel like these are crimes that no one is punished for. Yes I understand that they are police officers but without a badge they are no different then us. It is unjust that police can get away with such an act of violence because of what they assume are to come dealing with black men. Not all black men and women in NY or even in the United States are felons. I feel that police single out black people or bring a certain stereotype amongst the black community. I see many things like this in my community. Not the 50 rounds into a car, but the stereotype of black people. Just because the color of our skin does not me we will be guilty of gun possession or drug possession. If that is the case we should stereotype whites to being rapist, sex offenders, kidnappers, and child molesters. I mean how would that make us look as a whole? If we can’t live together in the same neighborhoods and communities, then what makes us different then any of those other countries that are filled with hate and crime? I don’t think there was any significance to this other than to bring awareness. I mean not matter what things like this are going to happen. You can change the country but you first must change yourself before changing anything else.
ReplyDeleteIm dont really find this as a big shocker. I mean this really has been happening for years and its still happening. People try to push some of the hate crime on to the President asking what hes doing to help racism, when this has been happening before he was even elected. This is one of the reasons why some blacks take justice into their own hand and why they dont trust the police today. They expect black to trust some of the same people thats killing our realives, and nothings being done about it. They expect blacks to obay ans respect the law when the same people who enforce it are that ones to break it. Its not fair for this to be happening but what can we do. Fight fo what we believe in? Please, thats not going to do anything and it hasnt done anything for years. I honestly do see parallels of this incident in my community. The cob automatically view blacks a certain way, so if i could happen in NY it can happen anywhere else. I dont think things will change and if they do it wont be anytime soon.
ReplyDeleteI am very upet to her what happened in the film but it does not come as a surprise.It is more upsetting that it happens more often. Everything the people said in the film was true. Like seeing the hate crimes against the black on black and white on black but never black on white. It is good to see the young African American boys in the film showing how they feel about it. This shows that they know whats going on and understand and it brings them togather. I see situations like this happens in my community all the time.It is scary that it constantly happens and nothing is being done about it. It is important to have community involvement because people have to stick togather to come up against situations like Sean Bell.
ReplyDeletemy reaction to this clip is that i was shocked by how little the police did to see if it was the man they were looking for. but since they saw a black man that looked like who they thought it was they decided to shoot. no one needed to get shot. just because someone carrys a gun doesnt mean theyre just gonna go out and use it. from where i live now there are no shootings or robbery's. where i used to live there were some around the corner involving a innocent cab driver and a couple of kids with a gun. its not safe around harrisburg and by the way things are going its just gonna keep getting worse. the significance of 'grass roots community involvement isnt very involving. yeah stuff gets past around but nothing changes
ReplyDeleteAfter watching the short documentary, I am Sean Bell, I am astounded. These children, who are not even teenagers yet, are observing that their should be heroes are murderers. Everyone should have a healthy fear of the law, it is a part of keeping things in order. However, these kids said themselves that they have to watch their backs. Police officers have sworn to serve and protect, and as it would seem in this case, they have a very different idea of what it is exactly that they should be doing. They are discriminating and they do not receive any punishment. Furthermore, they fired over 50 rounds and no charges are being pressed? I'd think that firing so many rounds could be considered excessive force, but no charges are being placed. Its absolutely horrible what these kids are having to grow up around and the affect it has on them is even worse. Children should be in an environment that is safe and beneficial to their development, not an impediment.
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