AP
Tuesday, December 5, 2006

One of two men wounded in the hail of 50 police bullets that killed their unarmed friend following a bachelor party has for the first time publicly disputed the police version of the incident.

In an interview Tuesday at a Queens hospital, Trent Benefield was asked if it was true that a fourth companion, possibly armed, fled the scene of the Nov. 25 shooting outside a Queens strip club.

"No,'' he said in a soft voice. "No fourth man.''

Benefield, 23, who was shot three times in the legs, was released from the hospital on Tuesday and was scheduled to meet with the Rev. Al Sharpton, according to Sharpton's office.

"My friend's dead,'' Benefield said in an interview with NY1. "I'm shot up. We need justice.''

Lawyers for Benefield and the still-hospitalized Joseph Guzman, 31, say both men also have claimed that none of the five undercover and plainclothes officers identified themselves as police before opening fire. The barrage of bullets killed 23-year-old Sean Bell on the morning of his wedding.

The officers "never'' identified themselves, Guzman said, speaking from his bed at Mary Immaculate Hospital in a separate interview published Tuesday by the New York Daily News.

About Bell, Guzman said, "I took 16 shots, but a superstar died that night. I loved him.''

Guzman also called on New Yorkers outraged by the shooting to exercise restraint.

"No violence, man,'' he said. "No violence. Not in my name.''

Police have said an undercover officer -- part of a team investigating the club for prostitution and drugs -- began following Bell and his friends to their car after overhearing Guzman threaten to retrieve a gun in a dispute with another man.

As the car started to pull away, it bumped the officer and then smashed into an unmarked police van, police said.

Through his lawyer, the undercover officer has insisted he believed Guzman was pulling a gun when he opened fire on the car; no gun was found. He and other witnesses also have said there was a fourth man in or near the car who escaped on foot.

The five officers have been put on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of a grand jury investigation by the Queens district attorney's office.

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