Yesterday, the NYPD announced the launch of Operation TORCH, a new initiative bringing police with submachine guns and bomb-sniffing dogs into the subway system. Today, in Queens, Judge Cooperman ruled that the officers involved in the killing of Sean Bell are not guilty on all counts. It's hard to believe the timing was coincidental - the images on the news of huge men decked out in black uniforms with submachine guns and dogs are a not so subtle reminder of the power of the NYPD, just in case anyone got it into their heads to get up in arms, so to speak, about the ruling in the Bell case.

But let's give the NYPD the benefit of the doubt. Let's just say, for the sake of argument, that the timing was coincidental. Never mind that the funds for the program were authorized by the Department of Homeland Security back in February, according to news reports - my guess would be as part of the Transit Security Grant Program mentioned in this February 1st DHS press release. If the timing of the TORCH squads isn't intended to intimidate potential Bell protesters, the timing is at minimum thoughtless.

This Newsday article says that the guns are MP5 submachine guns. While the article doesn't specify the make of the guns, Heckler & Koch make the MP5 submachine guns, whose website details the specs of the MP5 line. With three officers just acquitted in a 50-shot incident, does it really seem like a good time for the NYPD to announce the deployment of weapons that can fire 700 to 900 rounds a minute?

Just to put that into perspective, the five officers involved in the Club Kalua fired 50 shots in 12 seconds, according to some estimates. Just one of these MP5 submachine guns could fire 140-180 shots in that same amount of time.

Torch is also an incredibly poor choice of names for this Operation. This New York 1 report suggests that TORCH is an acronym for Transit Operational Response Canine, and Heavy Weapons teams, the W being silent, one has to assume. The naming teams over at the NYPD may not realize that Operation Torch was the code name for the Allied invasion of French North Africa, in WWII. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt on that one too - they're not paid to be students of history. But someone could have pointed out that naming the TORCH teams after a white army invading African nations may conjure up some associations the NYPD might want to avoid. Or maybe not - maybe the NYPD is totally comfortable with the link between the Allied operation and their own forces, with the association between our streets and subways and a colonized nation. And after all, with it's 40,000 officers, the NYPD is the 6th biggest standing army in the world, as mentioned somewhat ironically in this report from the Attorney General's office on the NYPD's Stop and Frisk procedures. Yes, the world.

In the verdict handed down today, Officers Isnora, Oliver, and Cooper got the benefit of the doubt quite literally. According to this article in the Times, Judge Cooperman said that “The people have not proved beyond a reasonable doubt” that the officers were not justified in the shooting. And I'll give them the benefit of the doubt too. Maybe they really thought someone in Bell's party had a gun. Maybe they were scared and confused, and thought they were in danger. But that's the job. That's what you sign up for when you become a police officer. One of the key quotes in the trial is this one, from assistant DA Charles A. Testagrossa. “We ask police to risk their lives to protect ours,” he said in his closing arguments. "Not to risk our lives to protect their own.” That's the job.

The officers at Club Kalua didn't give Sean Bell, Joseph Guzman, and Trent Benefield the benefit of the doubt on the night of November 25, 2006. As this Newsday article notes, "Police officers are trained to shoot until they are sure there is no longer a threat." But, the article continues, "sources say investigators do not feel Oliver ever paused to properly assess to assess (sic) the situation." Officer Oliver fired 31 shots, the most fired by any officer at the scene. It's the job of officers like Isnora, Oliver, and Cooper to ask questions first, and ideally not shoot at all. But it seems to have become standard operating procedure for the NYPD to shoot first and ask questions later, or never. If officers aren't going to give us New Yorkers the benefit of the doubt, maybe we shouldn't be giving them guns that can blast off up to 900 rounds in 60 seconds flat. The officers at Club Kalua had to reload. The inevitable next time, they won't have to.