Videos Capture Chase, Shootout that Wounded 3 N.Y. Police Officers
By Maki Becker
Source The Buffalo News, N.Y.
The tinted windows on Kente Bell's Jeep Cherokee were what initially caught the attention of two Buffalo patrol officers Tuesday evening.
That was moments before Bell allegedly hit the pedal and led police on a cross-town chase during which he is accused of shooting repeatedly with an illegal gun and wounding three officers before police shot him.
The gun was loaded with a high-capacity magazine, Erie County District Attorney John J. Flynn Jr. said Thursday.
Bell, 28, of Buffalo was arraigned Thursday afternoon in his hospital bed at Erie County Medical Center after awakening from sedation. He was charged with three counts of attempted murder in the first-degree and criminal possession of a weapon. A second hearing is scheduled for Friday for violating his probation from a 2020 conviction on a gun possession charge out of Amherst.
The investigations into the chase and shootings continue.
On Thursday, Flynn gave new details about how it all began — and the wild events that followed:
The officers spotted a Jeep with darkened windows parked at Broderick Park at the foot of Ferry Street.
The pair approached the vehicle and the driver, identified as Bell, was cooperative, Flynn said. A female friend was in the car with him. Bell handed them his license and the officers found that there was "an issue with the registration," Flynn said.
The officers asked Bell to step out of the car, and he informed them that he could not. Ten years earlier, Bell was seriously wounded in a shooting. The injuries left him "partially paralyzed" and he needed two crutches to walk, Flynn said.
As the officers began asking more questions, Flynn said, Bell suddenly drove off, heading north on Niagara Street into Black Rock. That was at 5:58 p.m., Flynn said.
As police pursued him, the woman who had been in the car with him "opened the front passenger door and jumped out of the car while it was moving," Flynn said.
"She was obviously freaking out," Flynn said.
Then at 6:01 p.m., on Austin Street, Bell fired a gun and kept driving, Flynn said.
Police tried to form a roadblock on the southbound lanes of Niagara Street, but Bell was able to get past it and onto the Scajaquada Expressway. As has been reported before, the chase continued east to the Kensington Expressway. Authorities don't believe Bell fired shots while on the highways, Flynn said.
Shortly after he exited at Bailey Avenue, he allegedly fired at a Buffalo police officer, wounding him in the bicep and edge of his ear. The chase continued through side streets of the East Side, at one point entering Cheektowaga, before Bell returned into the city. He is accused of shooting the second police officer while on Genesee Street — that officer took a bullet to his vest.
The chase ended as Bell was driving east on East Ferry Street, where he was surrounded by police who opened fire. Bell was allegedly found holding his gun, which held a high-capacity magazine, when he was pulled out of the vehicle, Flynn said.
The gun was damaged by gunfire. Bell was shot in the neck, shoulder, leg and finger, Flynn said.
Flynn said Thursday he does not yet know how many bullets Bell fired nor how many bullets police officers fired during the nearly 30-minute ordeal. He said he still does not know how many officers fired their weapons or how many officers Bell is believed to have shot at but didn't hit.
Flynn likened the series of events to a scene from a movie.
"You have a high speed chase," noted Flynn, adding, "You got blockades. You got speeding on the highways. You got a girl jumping out of the car. You got, you know, coming to a stop at a gas station and you know, shots, like in a movie."
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