Nicole Paultre-Bell (c., in black scarf) leads demonstrators along Fifth Ave. yesterday.
The wedding registry at Tiffany's lists a Sean Bell and reports that he and his bride-to-be hope for a $155 crystal decanter and a $90 pair of Champagne flutes.
But the wedding date for this Sean Bell is listed as 5/26/07 and his fiancée's name is Lori Vialet. The Sean Bell who had demonstrators assembling just up Fifth Ave. yesterday was supposed to have been married on 11/25/06, but was killed early that morning by a hail of police bullets as he and two other unarmed men were leaving his bachelor party.
That Sean Bell's fiancée was Nicole Paultre. She has since legally assumed his surname, and she arrived for yesterday's demonstration as Nicole Paultre-Bell. The wedding ring on her finger was not some $12,000 diamond confection from Tiffany's, but one of a pair of gold bands that her groom-never-to-be shopped for on Jamaica Ave. in Queens hours before he was killed.
The two wedding rings were found by investigators in the bullet-riddled car and the Queens district attorney's office delivered them to the bride-not-to-be at her request. She placed one on Sean Bell's finger as he lay in his open coffin on the morning of his burial.
The twin ring on Nicole Paultre-Bell's finger glinted even in the shadows of the surrounding buildings at noon yesterday. She wore a stylish pale yellow coat, a long black scarf, black pants, black shoes as well as sunglasses that did nothing to hide her continuing sorrow.
Her mother was on her right, the two arm in arm. Farther over, Trent Benefield, who had been in the car with her fiancé, was in a wheelchair being pushed by the Rev. Al Sharpton.
The demonstrators had been given just a lane of Fifth Ave., and in the crush that accompanied the start of the march Sharpton was forced from the front along with Benefield. Nicole Paultre-Bell led the way under the giant snowflake hanging over 57th St.
The crush was now such that the police did not stop the marchers from taking all but a narrow corridor of the avenue as they continued past Tiffany's and its registry with that luckier Sean Bell.
Nicole Paultre-Bell continued to lead the way, which was exactly how it should have been because she has proven herself to be as magnificent a young woman as this city has seen.
When the tensions were mounting and passions were rising, this woman who had lost more than anybody went on television with words that leave every peace-loving soul in this city in her lasting debt. She said that her overall view of the police had not changed, that she did not hold every cop responsible, that she still believed justice would prevail.
"I'm really not angry," she said. "I'm more just trying to be strong and we just want justice. ... That's what we're praying for."
Now, she strode at the head of what was conceived as a silent march for justice, her soft slip-on shoes stepping on the white center line of the city's premiere shopping street at the height of the Christmas season. A media mob repeatedly blocked the way and nine cops in light blue jackets joined hands to form a moving line, keeping the way clear.
On she went past St. Patrick's Cathedral and Saks Fifth Avenue, a silent figure of love and loss leading a march whose participants also included Abner Louima and the Rev. Calvin Butts and Rep. Charles Rangel (D-Harlem). She was out of the shadows now, the sun on her fiercely tender face, her wedding ring glinting even brighter.
At the giant Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center, tourists turned to stare. Sharpton reappeared at the front, still pushing Benefield in the wheelchair as the march passed those lions named Patience and Fortitude outside the New York Public Library.
Sharpton appeared uncharacteristically close to humble in the presence of this intensely alive young woman who is so much stronger than any figure of stone. He seemed to cede her leadership of another kind.
"Regal," he would later say of her.
Nicole Paultre-Bell was indeed, all the way to the final block, when her right hand rose to touch that gold band on her left.
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