THREE MEN WHO HAD NO REASON TO RUN

As the first scream came out of the courtroom loudspeakers, the
defense lawyers were on their feet. By the second scream, the video
was paused. Prosecutors and defense lawyers huddled at the bench with
the judge.

As they spoke, a frozen image loomed on giant video monitors at the
front of the courtroom: a man lying on his belly on Liverpool Street
in Queens, his hands cuffed behind him, his head tilted back to keep
his face off the sidewalk, his lips formed around an unheard agony.
His name was Trent Benefield and it was around 4 in the morning of
Nov. 25, 2006.

Moments earlier, he had been in the back seat of a car, getting a ride
with two friends after a bachelor party. None of them were bothering a
soul in the world.

How Mr. Benefield wound up on Liverpool Street, his leg shattered by a
bullet -- and how the other passenger was maimed, and the driver, Sean
Bell, killed -- has been under microscopic examination for seven
weeks. Three police officers are being tried on charges that they shot
at the men without justification or the care required by law for the
use of lethal force.

By Thursday, when the video of Mr. Benefield was being shown for the
second time, the trial transcript had run to 4,730 pages, much of it
about a barrage of gunfire that lasted 30 seconds or so.

For all that, it was hard to shake the feeling that whatever verdict
emerged, the trial itself would be insufficient to the moment.

New York City has been using undercover officers and detectives for
generations. Seven months after Mr. Bell was killed, the Police
Department announced that it would install lights and megaphones in
the cars of supervisors to "enhance the awareness of police presence
during enforcement actions." It would also design a distinctive jacket
for plainclothes officers; conduct inspections before undercovers went
into the field to make sure they had all their equipment; and make
sure that their supervisors had had proper training.

Mr. Bell's car was approached by an undercover detective, weapon
drawn. For most of the night, the detective, Gescard F. Isnora, had
pretended to be a john in a topless bar, looking for prostitutes.
Outside the bar, though, he heard talk of a gun, and followed Mr. Bell
and his friends to their car, while calling to fellow officers. At
that moment, all of them were shifting from one role -- as undercovers
or their plainclothes backups, doing investigative work in disguise --
to law enforcement officers openly using their authority as the police
on a much riskier mission.

They had driven to Liverpool Street in an unmarked Toyota Camry and an
unmarked Ford Freestar minivan.

As Detective Isnora walked up to Mr. Bell's car, he was wearing, he
testified, his police shield on his collar, and screaming out police
commands. Whatever Mr. Bell heard or saw, he pulled out of the parking
spot, grazing the detective, then slammed into the unmarked Ford on
the street. He backed up onto the sidewalk, and hit a gate. Then he
drove forward again. Detective Isnora said that he thought a passenger
in the front seat was reaching for a gun, and opened fire.

None of the unmarked police cars on the street displayed "turret
lights." When the officers got out of those cars, none of them were
wearing police raid jackets. The lieutenant in charge of the operation
had no bullhorn or megaphone. To learn that they were being approached
by police officers, Mr. Bell and his friends could rely only on the
screams of Detective Isnora, and perhaps a glimpse of the badge the
detective said was on his collar.

The men in the car had no gun, no drugs and none of them had any
outstanding warrants. Mr. Bell was to be married later that day; he
was coming from his bachelor party, and he was legally drunk. None of
the men seemed to have any motive to run from the police. The two
survivors, Joseph Guzman and Mr. Benefield, said they did not know
Detective Isnora was a police officer.

The undercovers and their backups shot 50 times. One shot went through
an AirTrain terminal; another went into the living room of a home
across the street, hitting a lampshade as a family of four slept.

Mr. Guzman, in the front passenger seat, was hit with more than a
dozen bullets but lived. Mr. Bell was struck four times and died
behind the wheel. Mr. Benefield, who was in the back seat, somehow got
out and ran until he collapsed. He had been hit twice in the legs.

As he lay on the sidewalk, a freelance videographer captured the
moment. On Thursday, prosecutors ran part of the tape again to show
the police searching for a gun near him. The defense lawyers objected
to the cries of Mr. Benefield being rebroadcast.

"Your honor, I assume that you know how to lower the volume from the
bench," one of the lawyers said.

"I already did that," the judge, Arthur J. Cooperman, said.