Statistics Reflect NYPD Restraint

Rev. Al Sharpton, left, and Rev. Jessie Jackson, right , hold the hands of Nicole Paultre, the fiance of Sean Bell, during a vigil at the scene of a police shooting in the Queens borough of New York, Nov. 29, 2006. Sean Bell, 23, and two other unarmed men who were attending Bells bachelor party at a Queens strip club were shot an estimated 50 times by police officers just after leaving on early Saturday, Nov. 25, 2006. Bell was killed hours before he was to have married Paultre, the mother of his two children. (AP Photo/Adam Rountree) (Adam Rountree - AP)

NEW YORK -- Critics of the New York Police Department have seized on the killing of an unarmed man outside a strip club in a barrage of detectives' bullets as proof of an undisciplined, gun-happy force.

But statistics give a different picture, backing the NYPD's insistence that its officers, overall, are well-trained and prudent.

The shooting last weekend, killing a man who was to be married later in the day, brought unwelcome attention to a department that, for better and worse, is often in the headlines.

With more than 37,000 uniformed officers, the NYPD is by far the country's biggest, best-known police force. Its sometimes notorious abuses have become national news, yet its officers have killed fewer people so far this year _ 11 _ than some police departments in far smaller cities.

"There's always a spotlight on the NYPD," said Maki Haberfeld, a professor at New York's John Jay College of Criminal Justice who specializes in police training. "But in terms of actual numbers of shootings, and their use of force, there's no doubt in my mind they are one of the best departments (in) the country."

The NYPD's image has shifted dramatically in the past decade. It was lionized in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and vilified before and since for various violent incidents, including the jailhouse torture of Abner Louima in 1997 and the 1999 killing of unarmed African immigrant Amadou Diallo, who was struck by 19 of the 41 bullets fired at him.

Many questions remain unanswered about the killing of 23-year-old Sean Bell as he left his bachelor party at a Queens strip club. Police officials say five officers fired 50 bullets at a car with Bell and two other black men inside after it struck an undercover officer and an unmarked NYPD minivan. The officers were white, Hispanic and black.

The New York Civil Liberties Union, a frequent skeptic of the NYPD's ability to police itself, has called for an independent investigation of the shooting by the state attorney general's office.

NYCLU executive director Donna Lieberman noted that citizen complaints filed with a review board about alleged NPYD abuses had increased by 60 percent from 2001 to 2005.

"The shooting has to be looked at in that context," she said. "This is a time when the city should try to learn what went wrong _ not be defensive, but try to identify problems and solutions."

Other critics speaking out since the shooting include Amnesty International, civil rights activists Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, and a local group of black officers seeking removal of a commander overseeing the undercover unit involved in the shooting.

"This tragedy is not an isolated incident _ it is part of a pattern of questionable police tactics and abuse," said Larry Cox of Amnesty International USA.