I rarely agree with Sharpton, I think he exploits race issues for his own gain and publicity but this time I agree with him. I’m sure that the cops didn’t intentionally try to kill Sean Bell but at the very least they were reckless and should have been charged with that. One of the cops shot 31 times. If you’re shooting 31 times, shouldn’t you pause at say 10 and determine if the person is dead or ready to give up? I think shutting the city down would send a message to the city that the black community is not going to accept this type of treatment quietly. Nonviolent civil disobedience is called for in this instance.

Hundreds of angry people marched through Harlem on Saturday after the Rev. Al Sharpton promised to “close this city down” to protest the acquittals of three police detectives in the 50-shot barrage that killed a groom on his wedding day and wounded two friends.
“We strategically know how to stop the city so people stand still and realize that you do not have the right to shoot down unarmed, innocent civilians,” Sharpton told an overflow crowd of several hundred people at his National Action Network office in the historically black Manhattan neighborhood. “This city is going to deal with the blood of Sean Bell.”
Sharpton was joined by the family of 23-year-old Sean Bell – a black man – and a friend of Bell who was wounded in the 2006 shooting outside a Queens strip club. Two of the three officers charged were also black.

Update: BTW, those of you who think I parrot Michelle Malkin might want to go check out her take. (She has plenty of support for why I don’t agree with Sharpton and think he exploits these situations, this is the one time that I think that he can do some good. The name of the rally wasn’t “Kill the cops” that was what a bystander shouted out as the marchers passed by.)