Cop: Shooting was ‘last thing I wanted to do’!

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/03/21/groom.slain.ap/index.html A detective accused in the fatal shooting of an unarmed man on his wedding day testified he shouted “Police! Don’t move!” and believed the man’s friend was reaching for a weapon before officers began firing. “I felt he had a gun, and I couldn’t wait anymore,” Detective Gescard Isnora said in grand jury testimony read in court Thursday. “It was the last thing I wanted to do.” Isnora and detective Michael Oliver were charged with manslaughter in the November 2006 death of bridegroom-to-be Sean Bell as he left a bachelor party at a Queens strip club. A third detective, Marc Cooper, faces the lesser charge of reckless endangerment. The death of Bell in a hail of bullets hours before his wedding and the wounding of two of his friends sparked community outrage and raised questions about police use of deadly force. Bell was black, as are the other victims, while the officers involved are Hispanic, black and white. A judge is hearing the men’s trial without a jury. Prosecutors have portrayed the detectives as trigger-happy and poorly supervised. The defense contends the officers were convinced they were in danger.