Gov. David Paterson pledged to examine undercover police conduct on Thursday, a day after more than 200 people were arrested protesting the acquittal of three detectives involved in the shooting death of an unarmed man. Paterson said he understood the activists' frustrations as he stood with the slain man's fiancee and the Rev. Al Sharpton, who were among the demonstrators arrested while disrupting evening rush hour traffic. But the governor stopped short of endorsing their actions. "No civil servant can condone civil disobedience," Paterson said, but he added: "They felt that they had no other choice but to take the action that they took, and I respect the decision that they made to take that action."

The governor's involvement was a measure of the emotion and unrelenting attention surrounding the shooting of Sean Bell, who was gunned down hours before he was to be married in November 2006. The gunfire stirred complaints about police tactics, and the acquittals on April 25 in state court prompted some activists to question the prospects of justice for minorities. Bell was black as were two of his friends wounded in the shooting; the officers are black, Hispanic and white.