The City Council yesterday approved renaming a Queens street after police-slaying victim Sean Bell, but several legislators said he wasn’t worthy of an honor often bestowed on cops killed in the line of duty.
With the council’s vote yesterday, three blocks of Liverpool Street in Queens, where Bell was shot and killed by cops on his wedding day, will be co-named Sean Bell Way.
“A City Council that places a man who nearly ran over police officers in the same category as heroes who risk their lives for us all every day needs to no longer have the authority to do street renamings,” fumed Councilman Vincent Ignizio (R-SI), who voted early in the meeting and left in protest.
Supporters said the renaming was appropriate.
“The truth is the death of Sean Bell, and the response thereafter, has caused significant change for the public policies of the city of New York,” Council Speaker Christine Quinn said.
“This isn’t meant to be anti-police officer.”
Councilwoman Letitia James (D-Brooklyn) said she voted for the measure to honor Bell’s daughter, Jada.
“No matter how many flaws he may have had, she no longer has a daddy,” James said.
The street naming for Bell — who was grouped with 69 other deceased New Yorkers, including former state Sen. John Marchi, of Staten Island, and boxing great Sugar Ray Robinson — passed 41-7, with two abstentions.
Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. (D-Queens), who chairs the Public Safety Committee, said he resented having to vote against the bill for people he considers heroes simply because the council would not allow Bell’s portion to be considered in a separate vote.
“It’s a despicable position we’re being placed in,” Vallone said. “There is nothing about [Bell’s death] that reflects positively on the city. He’s a criminal. He was driving drunk.”
Vallone said that he asked Quinn to take Bell’s name out of the bill but that he asked for the change too late in the process.
Police shot at Bell, who was 23 and unarmed, 50 times outside a Jamaica, Queens, strip club in 2006 as he left a bachelor party with friends.
A judge last year acquitted three detectives of all charges in Bell’s killing, a ruling that prompted widespread protest.
Detectives’ Endowment Association President Michael Palladino, who attended the council meeting yesterday, said recently that Bell had a criminal history and brought on his own death by aiming his car at cops.
Mayor Bloomberg said he would approve the street-naming bill but pointedly avoided supporting the Bell portion.
“When a bill comes before me listing a lot of names, I will sign the bill, regardless of how I feel about any one,” he said. “It’s a prerogative of the City Council and a tradition that they do it, and I will just — rather than inflame the situation — sign the bill.”