FOR THE RECORD

Nearly 60 percent of New Yorkers disagree with the acquittal of the three cops charged in the Sean Bell shooting, according to a Quinnipiac College poll released May 8.

That feeling was more pronounced for the minority respondents among 1,790 registered voters who were surveyed, with 89 percent of blacks and 71 percent of Latinos believing that Queens Supreme Court Justice Arthur Cooperman delivered the wrong verdict. But more than a third of the whites surveyed also believed the judge erred.

According to Quinnipiac, more than half the poll respondents called the Detectives' actions "inexcusable," while 30 percent characterized them as tragic but understandable.

Detectives Endowment Association President Mike Palladino, who represents the three acquitted officers, said he believed the results were skewed by a misleading picture of the circumstances that led to the shooting that he claimed had been presented by the media and supporters of the Bell family, led by the Reverend Al Sharpton.

"There was a seven-to-eight-week examination of the facts in Justice Cooperman's courtroom," the DEA leader said. "If [those surveyed] had the luxury of being there for it, I think all those people would have voted to acquit also."

Two-thirds of the poll respondents, including 53 percent of whites, said they considered police brutality a "very serious" or "somewhat serious" problem in the city. A bare majority of those surveyed approved of the job done by police, and only 22 percent of black respondents felt that way.

"There is a substantial racial divide in New York City on the Sean Bell case and the broader issues of police conduct," Quinnipiac Polling Institute Director Mickey Carroll said in a statement.

Although Mayors are generally closely linked to the NYPD, Michael Bloomberg to a large degree escaped blame for what those surveyed found wrong with the agency - 68 percent said they approved of the way he handles race relations.

That finding, coupled with the fact that 61 percent of those who responded said the police are tougher on blacks than whites, suggest voters believe Police Commissioner Ray Kelly exerts control over the NYPD independent of the Mayor, and that it could be a hurdle for him to clear if he runs to succeed Mr. Bloomberg next year.

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There was a distinct irony to Staten Island Congressman Vito Fossella's world collapsing around him after a traffic stop for driving drunk led to public exposure of his having fathered a 3-year-old daughter with his mistress.

A decade ago, after Bill Clinton's finger-pointing gave way to the admission that he had in fact had sex "with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky," Mr. Fossella was among those waxing righteous, proclaiming that the lying was worse than the illicit sex. (As another sinner of that persuasion, Woody Allen, might note, the lying is always going to be worse if you're doing the sex right.)

We'd bet that if Congressman Fossella knew what things would come to, he'd have resisted the temptation to moralize about the First Cheater back then.

Then again, maybe not. Word was that even before the scandal became public, Mr. Fossella had been so indiscreet about his conduct that the Democratic National Committee knew about Vito's going the extra mile on family values and was waiting for the right time to spring it.

If there's anything unfortunate about the tawdry details coming forth, beyond the damage it's done to both his families, it's that they have almost obscured the more-serious offense of getting behind the wheel while twice the legal standard for being drunk.

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Dan Castleman, who when not moonlighting as a technical adviser and sometimes actor for "The Sopranos" has spent the last 15 years as Chief of Investigations for the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, was promoted May 8 to Chief Assistant District Attorney by DA Bob Morgenthau.

Mr. Castleman, who joined the DA's Office 29 years ago right out of law school, will be replaced as Chief of Investigations by Patrick Dugan, the Chief of the Rackets Bureau, who also succeeded Mr. Castleman in that post back in 1993.

The new head of the Rackets Bureau will be Eric Seidel, who had been both Deputy Chief of the bureau and Counsel to the Investigations Division.

All those moves were occasioned by longtime Chief Assistant DA James Kindler's appointment to a Court of Claims judgeship.