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New York police shooting survivors assist investigators

NEW YORK — Amid community anger and nagging questions about the police shooting of an unarmed black man on his wedding day, district attorney investigators for the first time yesterday interviewed two injured survivors of the 50-shot fusillade, the men’s lawyer said.Trent Benefield and Joseph Guzman, both still hospitalised with multiple gunshot wounds, “have begun their cooperation with the Queens district attorney’s office,” said attorney Sanford Rubenstein.

The men were expected to help answer two key questions about the perplexing case: Was there a fourth man, perhaps armed, in or near the car with the others when the first of five officers opened fire, and did that officer identify himself?

Rubenstein said his clients claim the answers are no and no — “unequivocally” — a response that contradicts accounts provided by police lawyers and union officials.

The shooting killed 23-year-old Sean Bell on his wedding day and wounded two of his companions, setting off a storm of outrage in New York, especially in the black community.

The three victims are black, and the police officers included two blacks, two whites and one Hispanic.

Through his lawyer, the initial shooter has insisted he had his badge out and had identified himself when, believing Guzman was pulling a gun, he opened fire. He and other witnesses also have said there was a fourth man in or near the car who escaped on foot, possibly with a weapon.

Union officials met behind closed doors with prosecutors yesterday and urged them to be impartial in their investigation of the killing Bell on November 25 outside a seedy Queens strip club. That night the club was both the venue for Bell’s bachelor party and a target of an undercover vice operation.

“Fiction on the street shouldn’t become fact in the courtroom,” Patrick Lynch, president of the Patrolman’s Benevolent Association, said following the meeting.

The union officials said prosecutors offered no timetable for when a grand jury might begin hearing evidence, including the testimony of the five officers. The officers have been put on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of the probe.

Visiting a Florida elementary school with Gov. Jeb Bush yesterday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he was offended by some of the protests since the shooting, including one sign that read, “Death to Pigs.”

“It’s disgusting and disgraceful and they should have learned from the past that those kinds of thoughts and signs have no place in our society, no matter what happened Saturday morning a week ago,” the mayor said.