The November 25 police killing of Sean Bell—an unarmed 23-year-old black man—outside a club in Jamaica, Queens triggered anger and mourning throughout New York City in the weeks leading up to press time.

Roughly 1000 protestors rallied in Lower Manhattan on December 6, demanding NYPD Police Commissioner Ray Kelly’s resignation and counting from one to fifty to symbolize the number of shots fired at Bell and his two friends by undercover officers.

At the rally, Councilmember Charles Barron told the crowd that the protest was not only about Sean Bell or his two wounded friends, but more broadly about the manner in which  the city’s police treat New Yorkers of color.

Here in Highbridge, the Young and Pastrana families of Anderson Avenue, whose homes were raided by police a little more than three months ago, echoed that message. They said  Bell’s death on the day before he was to be married hit them personally. “My whole family feels close to this incident,” Flexton Young Jr. said. “Because like my wife said, ‘That could have been you.’”

Young Jr. his wife Lashauna, and their four children were asleep around 6am on August 28 when officers broke down the door to their apartment in an apparent search for weapons and drugs. Only a single marijuana joint was found. The NYPD has defended the raids, saying it is not uncommon for suspects not to be in possession at the time a search warrant is executed.

The family’s lawyer, K.C. Okoli, has filed a notice of claim to sue the city for unlawful entry and excessive force—Flexton’s wife, Lashauna, was treated for injuries she said were sustained when an officer kicked her. NYPD spokesman Michael Collins has said he was not aware of any allegations of abuse during the incident.

Young said that when officers crashed through his door, he didn’t immediately realize that it was the police entering his home. Therefore, he said, his thoughts turned instantly to protecting his family against burglars. He imagined that if undercover officers outside the Kalua Club in Queens did not make clear to Sean Bell that they were with law enforcement when they drew their guns on his vehicle—an issue on which police and witnesses have provided conflicting accounts—Bell and his friends would have similarly assumed they were being carjacked and sought to escape or fend off the perceived assailants.

“The first thing people usually do is panic, cause they got a gun pointed at them,” Young said. “Guns kill. Who wants to die?” Young said he considers himself fortunate that he was naked at the time his home was raided, making it obvious to officers that he did not have a weapon on his person. 

Young also said the police shooting in Queens affected him directly because some of his family members know Joseph Guzman, one of Bell’s friends who was shot on November 25.

In the apartment directly upstairs from the Youngs, the police also raided the Pastrana apartment, with 21-year-old Luis Pastrana, his mother, and several children present. Like Lashauna Young, Luis Pastrana alleged abuse, stating an officer struck him on the side of his head with a weapon.

The Pastrana family’s complaint is currently under investigation by the Civilian Complaint Review Board; the Young family originally filed a complaint with the board, but the CCRB closed their case because Okoli had declined to meet with them.
Okoli said the decision was deliberate, because he felt that the CCRB tended to overwhelmingly rule in favor of police.

Pastrana, like Flexton Young, said the Bell shooting hit close to home and that he felt fortunate to be alive. “Hell yeah,” Pastrana said. “You never know. Especially the way they [police] came in here.”

CCRB spokesman Andrew Case said his board’s investigators are expecting key documents—including the search and arrest warrants from the raids and notes officers on the scene made in their memo books —to arrive soon. Case said he would not be able to reveal specific details of these documents to the public while the investigation is ongoing, but added that once they arrive, the CCRB should be able to pinpoint the unit of the NYPD that conducted the raids. The next step after that, Case said, is to interview individual officers believed to have participated in the raids, a process he said could take several weeks.

Matt Flahm, an attorney specializing in police misconduct cases who is representing the Pastrana family, said that CCRB investigations often take six to nine months to conclude , but added he anticipated filing a lawsuit on behalf of his client in early 2007 .