Kendrik, I understand where you're coming from and I agree with many of your points, but this is a very racially polarized case in a sequence of "police vs African Americans" explosions here ( starting with Rodney King and going on and on) and you have to see it in context.
It's a culture clash in my eyes--Sean Bell was living in his culture(and as far as I can tell from a quick read, at the time the police entered the picture wasn't actually carrying a gun, committing a crime or basically any more hopped up than any other guy having a bachelor party at a strip club) and the cops were living in theirs.
There are things wrong with both cultures--mostly in this instance coming down to a bunch of tough-talking machismo on the one hand , and the "be awed by my big gun" stuff on the other in my female opinion--but there's not much doubt to me that this was way over-reacting on the cop end at the time of occurrence, and now it's way over-reacting on the media end, and among the black community, it's a knee-jerk outrage response with police brutality real or perceived being a kind of gunpowdery issue for a lot of deeper problems that stem out of the race conundrum here.
Hope that makes it a little clearer--though of course I should add, that's my personal view only and my facts may need to be corrected by those more up on the story.
Edit: Hi, skavenhorde--posted on top of you. Excuse my chaotic good interjection