Sharpton may put story in spotlight

BY JENNIFER BARRIOS | Newsday Staff Writer

November 27, 2006

When the Rev. Al Sharpton gets involved, a big story can only get bigger.

Sean Bell, 23, died in a fusillade of police bullets in Queens on Saturday, the day he was to be married. Two others were wounded. Sharpton is now their spokesman.

The fact that the former Democratic presidential candidate and New York City mayoral candidate attached his name to the plight of the three men means he could turn Saturday's event into an emblem of larger problems in Queens -- and thousands will listen.

Sunday, as he addressed several hundred people at a rally at the Community Church of Christ in Jamaica, he called the shooting a "watershed," and compared it to the Abner Louima and Amadou Diallo police brutality cases.

He should know. The Louisiana native, who says he's been a civil rights leader since he was 13, and a minister from the time he was 4, stood by Louima, the Haitian immigrant who was sexually assaulted by New York City police officers after he was arrested in 1997.

Sharpton also toured the press circuit after the 1999 shooting of Diallo, who was killed after police fired 41 bullets at him in the doorway of his Bronx apartment.

A representative of the National Action Network, Sharpton's civil-rights organization, said Sunday that the reverend only gets involved at the request of families. "Reverend Sharpton speaks for the family," said Brooklyn lawyer Sanford Rubenstein, who represents Bell and the two men who were wounded in the shooting and who has represented Louima and Sharpton in the past. "We speak with one voice -- the voice of Reverend Sharpton."

It's not the first time a human crisis with the potential of bringing up larger issues -- racial strife, police brutality -- has attracted Sharpton.

The flashy man of God, who claims James Brown as his surrogate father, keeps his eye on blatant and perceived racial slights as well.

Sharpton protested the apology of Michael Richards, the former "Seinfeld" star who used a racial epithet against African-Americans during a comedy routine, because he apologized on a "white television show," the Late Show with David Letterman.

And he took up the cause of Rose Rock, mother of comedian Chris Rock, who alleged that she and her daughter were snubbed at a South Carolina Cracker Barrel restaurant earlier this year because they are black. The chain said the pair had been overlooked during a staffing change.

Sharpton also has been accused over the years of opportunism and fomenting racial strife.

In 1987, he famously defended a 15-year-old black girl who said she was kidnapped and raped by six white police officers.

A grand jury later found the girl, Tawana Brawley, had made up the story.

An assistant district attorney who was accused in the case sued Sharpton for civil damages. He won $65,000.