Police brutality prompts campus protest

On the day before Nicole Bell's wedding, she couldn't wipe the smile off her face.

"I was living my dream," she told NYU students at an event on Monday. "How many women actually get to marry their high school sweetheart?"

But it never happened.

"I was awakened at 4 a.m. by my mother," Nicole said. "Something had happened to Sean. We weren't sure, but we raced to the Jamaica hospital."

Sean Bell was Nicole's fiancé. On Nov. 25, 2006, he was shot 50 times by NYPD officers because they thought he was armed.

But he wasn't. Sean was walking out of a strip club and getting into a car with two friends. The officers thought Sean, who was African-American, was trying to run them down and that the men were armed.

"This was racism at its finest, and I needed to make sure there was justice and no other family would have to go through this," Nicole said at Monday's event; she was invited to NYU by CAS senior Josh Xavier to speak out against police brutality, which was the cause of about 2,000 deaths — more than 1,000 of which were unarmed victims — in the 1990s.

Since her husband's death, Nicole has spent much of her time raising awareness of police brutality.

Yesterday, on the west side of Washington Square Park, dozens of people, ranging from NYU students to family members of police brutality victims, came together for the same cause. Members of the NYPD were present at the park as well.

The protesters wore black and held signs criticizing the police.

"The whole damn system is guilty as hell. Indict, convict. Send the killer cops to jail," the protestors chanted.

Tisch sophomore Adewunmi Ogunfowora said Nicole's appearance at NYU inspired her to fight actively against police brutality.

"It's been plaguing me, as a black woman at NYU, a human being in society, just as an American, to see throughout history how the institutions we live in continue to objectify ... people," Ogunfowora said.

The protest was organized by the October 22nd Coalition, a national group founded in 1996 that aims to put pressure on police departments.

"I don't expect this police force to change," said Carl Dix, co-founder of October 22nd. "I think we have to change the system that puts together this police force and unleashes it and backs it up."

Others, though sympathetic toward the cause, saw the event as just another protest.

"It's NYU and anything can happen," Stern freshman Eugene Bang said. "It's really not much of a surprise. Frankly, I don't think there's much police brutality around here, but I'm just a freshman."

The movement has gained national attention. October 22nd has become a day of national protest against police brutality, and people from around the nation have rallied for the cause.

"One of the most important lessons we as a community have learned is that we can no longer be silent and hope that this doesn't happen to any other families," Nicole said.