Mayor Meets With Family of Slain Groom

New York City Police Chief Ray Kelly, third from left, and Rev. Al Sharpton, right, join other community leaders as New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, center, speaks to reporters in the Blue Room at City Hall in New York, Monday, Nov. 27, 2006, after Bloomberg and Kelly met with community leaders in the wake of the weekend shooting death of Sean Bell, an unarmed bridegroom who was gunned down by undercover police officers. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens) (Kathy Willens - AP)

NEW YORK -- Mayor Michael Bloomberg met Tuesday with the family of the man who was killed on his wedding day in a barrage of police gunfire as he left his bachelor party, and investigators questioned a third civilian witness.

Three days after the fatal encounter, it remained unclear why four detectives and one police officer opened fire while conducting an undercover operation at a strip club.

The unidentified witness was on a darkened block in Queens when five police officers killed 23-year-old Sean Bell and injured two friends as the three men sat inside a car, officials said.

There are two other civilian witnesses: One woman on the street who says she saw officers firing their weapons, and a second woman who from her window spotted a man running away from the area around the time of the shooting. Investigators were trying to determine whether that man had been with the three who were shot. They also reviewed security videotape from the scene.

On Tuesday, Bloomberg went to the Bell family's Queens church, where he met for about an hour with the parents and fiancee of the victim, along with the Rev. Al Sharpton. The mayor then met at a restaurant with about 50 community leaders.

Bell's mother later told WNBC-TV that she appreciated the expressions of sympathy from the mayor and police commissioner, but that she would prefer them not to attend her son's funeral Friday.

"I would rather just have the close friends and family," Valerie Bell said.

Some have questioned whether the shooting was racially motivated because the victims were all black. The five officers who fired their guns included two blacks, two whites and one Hispanic.

The mayor held a similar meeting Monday at City Hall in which he declared that officers appeared to use "excessive force" when Bell was killed hours before his wedding. He stood by his comments Tuesday.

"I am a civilian. I am not a professional law enforcement officer," he said. "I used the word excessive and that's fine. That was my personal opinion. It may turn out to be that it was not excessive."

Councilman James Sanders Jr. of Queens said he warned Bloomberg about possible unrest.

"I alerted the mayor that the temperature on the streets has increased to a large degree," he said. "While we are sitting in these meetings, a lot of people are out on the streets."