Sean Bell was legally blind in his right eye and may not have been able to see undercover cops walk up to his car right before they let loose a 50-shot barrage at him and his friends.
Daniel Friedman, an optometrist who treated the 23-year-old six months before the Nov. 25, 2006, shooting, testified Thursday that Bell had 20/400 vision in his right eye.
“Without glasses he would be able to see roughly four inches in front of his face with his right eye,” Friedman testified in Queens Supreme Court at the trial of three detectives charged with killing Bell on his wedding day.
Whether Bell knew the men firing at his Nissan Altima parked on Liverpool Street in Jamaica, Queens, were undercover cops is a key element in the case.
It remains unclear whether Bell was wearing contact lenses at the time of the shooting.
An autopsy did not reveal if he was wearing lenses because the medical examiner didn’t check.
Detectives Michael Oliver and Gescard Isnora are charged with manslaughter and reckless endangerment. Detective Marc Cooper is charged with reckless endangerment.
Prosecutors entered into evidence yesterday a 24-page document revealing that three of the four bullets that entered Bells body came from Olivers 9mm Sig Sauer pistol.
Oliver fired 31 shots three times more than any other cop.
The fourth bullet also came from a Sig Sauer, but Detective James Valenti, an NYPD ballistics expert, said he was unsure if it was fired by Oliver or Detective Michael Carey, who squeezed off three shots using the same model gun.
Carey, who was riding with Oliver in an unmarked police van, is not charged with a crime.
The defense has argued that Bell and his friends, Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield, were going to get a gun and settle a fight. Isnora told a grand jury last year that he believed Guzman was reaching for a gun.
Prosecutors have said Bell was the victim of trigger-happy plainclothes cops who acted recklessly when they approached the trio and began firing without identifying themselves.
Bell was drunk when he was shot near Club Kalua, a seedy strip joint where he had held his bachelor party. An autopsy showed his blood-alcohol level was .16 twice the states legal limit.
Friedman, 79, said the alcohol in Bells system could have further impaired his eyesight.
“The assumption is that alcohol would do that,” he said. “Your vision would be impaired. “
Friedman said Bell came in for a check-up at Lens Lab Express in Queens on May 18, 2006.
“He was interested in acquiring one contact lens for his right eye,” Friedman recalled. “He came in wearing…no glasses and no contact lenses. “
Bells left eye — which Friedman said was 20/30 — was good enough to get him a drivers license.
Friedman said Bell “never acquired the prescription and never came back” to the store.