Calls for the intervention of U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey and the announcement of a massive protest march planned jointly by the nation’s leading civil rights organizations came this weekend following the Friday acquittal of three New York City police detectives charged with gunning down an unarmed bride groom in November 2006.

“We are going to march. We can’t let this get away,” said Charles Steele, national president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He was one of several national civil rights leaders who gathered in New York over the weekend with the Black Leadership Council to discuss strategy in response to the verdict.

“We can’t expect a system that enslaves us to save us,” Steele told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “We must do this for ourselves.”

Participating organizations included the National Action Network, the NAACP, the National Coalition for Black Civic Participation, the SCLC and the National Urban League. Plans for the march will be announced at a later date, Steele said.

New York Judge Author Cooperman, 74, acquitted detectives Michael Oliver, Marc Cooper and Gescard Isnora of all charges in the death of Sean Bell, a 23-year-old father of two who had been out with friends at Club Kalua the night before his wedding. The officers -- undercover detectives who were investigating reports of prostitution at the club -- said they thought one of the men had a gun. Friends and family have said that Bell was simply trying to get away because he thought he and his friends were being attacked.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, founder of the National Action Network, said he wants federal prosecutors to charge the detectives with civil rights violations. He has also threatened protests outside Cooperman's home, saying the judge looked down on Bell and his friends because they were in a seedy club late at night.

"The new way to police now is if you think someone said they have a gun, you follow them to the gun, wait for them to get into the car, and take action," Sharpton said in a prepared statement. "That is why we appeal to the Justice Department. Step in to protect the rights of the citizens of this city."

Detectives fired a total of 50 bullets at Bell and his friends. Bell was killed.  One of his friends -- Joseph Guzman -- was a passenger in the car and was shot 16 times; today, he has a rod in his leg. Another friend and passenger, Trent Benefield, also was badly wounded by the gunfire.

Delores Jones-Brown, director of the Center on Race, Crime and Justice at New York’s John Jay School of Criminal Justice, called Friday’s verdict “a catastrophe.”

She likened the judge’s decision to the decision in the case of Amadou Diallo in 1999. In that case, police who fired 41 shots at an unarmed Diallo were acquitted in his death.

“Just like in the Diallo case, the majority population already had decided what the verdict should be, and that is exactly what happened,” Jones-Brown told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “I thought there would at least be a charge of reckless endangerment because of the number of bullets fired."

“According to the department’s policy, an officer firing a weapon should fire only three times then reassess the situation," she said. "On average studies show that New York officers fire four times when discharging their weapons. In this case, only one of the officers fired four times; another fired 11, and Oliver fired 30 times.”

The department will not change without federal intervention, she said. “It’s as if they think it’s okay to shoot people of color because they can get away with it. What would happen if these young men were college students or young people in the suburbs?”

Jones-Brown also questioned the preparation of the prosecution witnesses in the case.

“Someone should have told these witnesses they were going before a judge who was a 74-year-old white man,” she said. “Maybe the district attorney didn’t feel comfortable having that discussion with them.”

Richard A. Brown, who is white, is a 75-year-old veteran prosecutor. He has been the district attorney in Queens about 17 years. He is also a former judge.

Judge Cooperman questioned the credibility of the witnesses, saying that some had criminal records and some changed their testimony.

In a statement issued following the announcement of the verdict, Cooperman said, “The court has found that the people's ability to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt was affected by a combination of the following factors: The prosecution witnesses' prior inconsistent statements, inconsistencies in testimony among prosecution witnesses, the renunciation of prior statements, criminal convictions, the interest of some witnesses in the outcome of the case, the demeanor on the witness stand of other witnesses and the motive witnesses may have had to lie and the effect it had on the truthfulness of a witness's testimony."

“These factors played a significant part in the people's ability to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt and had the effect of eviscerating the credibility of those prosecution witnesses," he said. "And, at times, the testimony just didn't make sense.”

Some defense lawyers, former prosecutors and other interested observers said the prosecutor played the hand he was dealt in taking this case to trial.

“The case was flawed from the beginning and probably shouldn’t even have been brought to indictment,” defense lawyer Marvyn M. Kornberg said in an article published in The New York Times. “There was conflict in the testimony, not only internally with each witness, but externally, between the witnesses. Those are the kind of witnesses you put on the stand?”

Defense attorney Joseph G. Sulik watched part of the trial and told The New York Times, “I think he presented the case he could present. He has to put the people who were there on the stand -- you have to take them, good or bad.”

Steele and other leaders said the death of Sean Bell is further evidence of a systemic problem relating to blacks and justice in America.

“A black man has to be shot for us to be reminded that black men are having their lives stolen on a day-to-day basis,” said Dr. Boyce Watkins, a Syracuse University social and political analyst. “This is a symptom. We’ve got to get to the cause,” Watkins told BlackAmericaWeb.com.

Marq Claxton, a former New York police detective who retired after 20 years of service, sat through several days of the trial and questioned several decisions by the prosecutors.

“He called up one witness who was an optometrist to say that Sean Bell had 20/400 vision in one eye and, with alcohol in his system, may not have seen the police. Why would the prosecutor call a witness like that? That seems like something the defense would do,” Claxton told BlackAmericaWeb.com.

“There is an incestuous relationship between the district attorney’s office and the police department,” said Claxton, a cofounder of the group 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care. “The police supply the DA’s office with work to do their job. The DA’s office would not exist if it were not for the work of the police.”

Claxton said he was not surprised by the verdict.

“Those of us who know the system and have paid attention to history had hoped for a different outcome, but we expected what we got,” he said.

“There are those who think we have arrived, but we haven’t,” said Steele. “I say get back on the bus; we haven’t reached our destination."

Sen. Barack Obama was asked about the verdict while making a campaign stop in Indianapolis, according to an article published on Washingtonpost.com.

“Obviously, there was a tragedy in New York. I said at the time, without benefit of all the facts before me, that it looked like a possible case of excessive force. The judge has made his ruling, and we're a nation of laws, so we respect the verdict that came down," he said in the Washingtonpost.com article. "The most important thing for people who are concerned about that shooting is to figure out how we come together and assure those kinds of tragedies don't happen again.”

Sen. Hillary Clinton also issued a statement on the verdict, saying “This tragedy has deeply saddened New Yorkers -- and all Americans. My thoughts are with Nicole and her children and the rest of Sean's family during this difficult time. The court has given its verdict, and now we await the conclusion of a Department of Justice civil rights investigation. We must also embrace this opportunity to take steps -- in our communities, in our law enforcement agencies, and in our government -- to make sure this does not happen again."

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Associated Press contributed to this story.