Mystery Witness Found in Groom's Slaying

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 -- Officers have raided at least one home, picked up the son of a clergyman for an unpaid ticket and scoured vacant lots with a leave-no-stone-unturned intensity akin to a manhunt in a murder case. But the search has nothing to do with a fugitive killer.

Instead, police are trying to locate a key witness _ and perhaps a missing gun _ in hopes of explaining why five police officers unleashed a 50-shot barrage that killed a man on his wedding day outside a strip club last week.

Police critics on Friday warned of a backlash: They claim the search has created a climate of fear in a community already outraged by the death of Sean Bell, 23, and the wounding of two other unarmed men who attended his bachelor party at the club.

They say police have concocted a "phantom gunman" in a desperate effort to show that officers were justified in opening fire.

"This kind of police conduct is frightening, and it serves as a chilling impact on those witnesses who want to come forward and simply tell what they saw, what they heard, so that justice can be served," said Charlie King, an attorney who said he represents several potential witnesses, including a man who could be the one intensely sought by police.

Police said clues gathered during a raid on a Queens home suggested the man, identified by his lawyer as 27-year-old Jean Nelson, was with three unarmed men early Nov. 25 moments before officers fired at their car.

The shooting has sparked outrage in the city and brought cries of racism. Bell was black; two of the officers are black, two are white and one is Hispanic.

Nelson, who was detained Thursday but released, saw the shooting, but he "did not have a gun, nor was he in the car as police have suggested," King said.

A law enforcement official said Friday that investigators have taken statements from civilian witnesses that put a fourth man, possibly Nelson, near the car at the time of the shooting. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing.

The first officer to shoot at Bell's car has claimed that he believed there was a gun in the car and that the men were retrieving it to settle a street dispute. No weapon was found, but police union officials have suggested a fourth man fled with one.

Police "seem hellbent on finding a phantom gunman who didn't exist," King said.

Police picked up the son of the Rev. Lester Williams, the pastor who conducted Bell's funeral, for questioning at 6 a.m. Thursday, using an unpaid $25 ticket as an excuse, King said.