Pal of Sean begs, 'No violence'
Survivor of police shooting calls Bell a superstar
BY MIKE JACCARINO, ALISON GENDAR and CORKY SIEMASZKO
DAILY NEWS WRITERS
Whispering from his hospital bed, police
shooting survivor Joseph Guzman yesterday called on New Yorkers
outraged by the death of his pal Sean Bell to refrain from
violence.
"I don't want any violence," Guzman said, clad
in green hospital pajamas and with his pregnant fiancée,
Eboni Browning, looking on. "No violence, man. No violence.
Not in my name."
He spoke hoarsely from his bed at Mary Immaculate Hospital
in Queens, his room cold and antiseptic.
"You could put this in the newspaper," Guzman
said as he grasped the hand of a Daily News reporter. "I
took 16 shots, but a superstar died that night."
Gripping the reporter's hand tighter, Guzman said it again: "Superstar."
"I loved him," he said of Bell.
Guzman spoke as The News learned that he, fellow shooting
survivor Trent Benefield, and Bell were the targets of a
police probe into a drug ring operating out of the Baisley
Park apartments in South Jamaica, according to law enforcement
sources.
On the surface, the investigation did not appear to be related
to the fatal shooting of Bell, whose death is roiling the
mostly black neighborhood. Asked whether the plainclothes
cops who gunned the 23-year-old Bell down on his wedding
day in a 50-shot barrage identified themselves, Guzman gave
an emphatic "Never!"
Guzman, 31, and Benefield, 23, were questioned at the hospital
yesterday by Queens prosecutor Charles Testagrossa. He asked
the men - both in stable condition - about a fourth man sources
believe was present.
"They were unequivocal that there was no fourth person
in the car and that the person who approached their car with
a gun never identified himself," lawyer Michael Hardy
said.
Meanwhile, sources said Guzman, Benefield and Bell already
were on the police radar before the Nov. 25 shooting. A confidential
police informant bought four bags of crack on Aug. 16 and
again two days later at a Sutphin Blvd. pad, the sources
said. The seller was Sean Bell, the law enforcement sources
said.
Bell was not arrested then because police were trying to
track down his alleged suppliers. He had been arrested twice
in the past eight months on drug charges and he was busted
in 2000 as a juvenile for possession of a firearm and three
air pistols, the sources said.
Guzman's record includes nine arrests for drugs. And Benefield
was busted with pot in November 2004 and as a teen in 2002
for armed robbery, sources said.
Hardy, who represents Benefield, Guzman and Bell's fiancée,
said he did not know of any drug investigation.
"This is another indication that the New York City
Police Department is not investigating any wrongdoing by
the officers at the scene but are interested in . . . creating
cover and motivation to justify the officers' actions and
dirty the name of a dead man," Hardy said.
Amid the allegations, Patrolmen's Benevolent Association
chief Patrick Lynch and Detectives' Endowment Association
President Michael Palladino met with Queens District Attorney
.Richard Brown. The union leaders have defended the five
cops who fired the fatal shots. "What we want here is
for the grand jury to review the facts of the case, not the
facts that are running in the street," Lynch said.
The five cops - one Hispanic, two white and two black -
are on leave and have turned in their weapons.
Guzman and Benefield had thrown a bachelor party for Bell
at the seedy Kalua Cabaret in Jamaica, unaware that undercover
cops were in the joint. Thinking that Guzman was armed, one
of the undercovers followed the three to Bell's car. What
happened next is in dispute.
Police say the undercover identified himself as a cop and
opened fire when Bell clipped him with his car. Guzman and
Benefield - and at least five other witnesses - have given
a different account of the shooting.
With Juan Gonzalez and Scott Shifrel
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