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Sean Bell Center closed

Sean Bell Center closed
Photo by Christina Santucci
By Rich Bockmann

On the seventh anniversary of Sean Bell’s death at the hands of the NYPD, the community center that bears his name is shuttered, unable to raise the financial support needed to keep its youth programs afloat.

Bell’s parents, William and Valerie, opened the Sean Elijah Bell Community Center in South Jamaica in 2011 to honor their son’s memory, but it has struggled lately to pay the bills, and several community members in southeast Queens said the gates of the non-profit’s storefront have been closed for several weeks.

The Rev. Phil Craig, pastor at the Greater Springfield Community Church and president of the Queens Chapter of the National Action Network, took the lead on organizing a benefit last December to help get the Bell center on its feet. But he said he was dismayed when the non-profit’s director could not provide a satisfactory answer as to how he would keep it running in the long term.

“I was quite disappointed,” to hear of its closing, he said. “I didn’t want to do the fund-raiser if they couldn’t come up with a long-term plan to keep it open. I came to find out that they had a questionable 501(c)3 status.”

In order to receive City Council member items, which many community-based organizations such as the Bell center depend on, a non-profit charity has to be an actively registered 501(c)3 with both the Internal Revenue Service and the state attorney general’s charities bureau, but the Sean Elijah Bell Foundation is not registered with the AG.

While the Council has allocated $58,500 to the non-profit started by Bell’s fiancée, Nicole Paultre, there is only one item sponsored by City Councilman Ruben Wills (D-Jamaica) in 2012 earmarked for the community center. The status of the $3,500 member item is listed on the Council’s website as “pending.”

The center could not be reached for comment, but William Bell has said in the past that he struggled to find funding after the $196,000 federal grant he used to start the center dried up.

A year after the center opened on May 18, 2011 — what would have been Bell’s 28th birthday — enrollment in its day and after school programs doubled to about 88 youngsters. The charity partnered with nearby PS 48 and held annual events such as coat drives, but by last winter it was barely getting by.

Craig said the community was able to raise somewhere between $7,000 and $10,000 for the Bell center late last year, including a $2,500 gift from the Rev. Al Sharpton, but ultimately it was not enough to keep the doors open.

“I’m really heartbroken about that, actually,” he said. “We don’t have that many community centers.”

Monday marked seven years since Bell was killed on the eve of his wedding in 2006 when undercover police officers fired 50 bullets at the 23-year-old and his two friends as they celebrated at the Club Kalua strip club in Jamaica.

Officers claimed they heard one of the men say he was going to get a gun and that Bell tried to run the police over with his car, but no weapon was found at the scene and the shooting sparked outrage over excessive police force.

The four officers involved in the shooting were cleared of criminal charges but later forced out of the department following an NYPD internal trial.

Reach reporter Rich Bockmann by e-mail at rbockmann@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4574.