NEW YORK (AP) – The indictments of three policeman in the 50-shot slaying of a would-be groom just hours before his wedding stirred a variety of emotions Friday: Police officials were outraged. The cleared officers were relieved. Family members said the news, while encouraging, does nothing to bring back their loved ones.

But all involved in the high-profile case shared one feeling: The grand jury’s decision accomplished very little toward resolving the tensions that have gripped the city or answering the questions raised by the shooting.

“We are a long way from a conviction,” said defense attorney Philip Karasyk, who represents Detective Gescard Isnora. “This is just the opening shot in a long war.”

His feelings were echoed by Peter St. George Davis, an attorney representing the parents of Sean Bell, 23, who was killed by the barrage of bullets outside a Queens strip club on Nov. 25.

“They are not going to be satisfied with anything less than a conviction against these officers,” he said. “And for those (two) not indicted, they will not be satisfied until they are terminated from the force.”

Attorneys for the three officers – Isnora, Marc Cooper and Michael Oliver – confirmed that their clients were indicted. The exact charges against the trio were unknown, but they were the officers who fired the most shots: four by Cooper, 11 by Isnora and 31 by Oliver.

The indicted officers will surrender on Monday, their attorneys said. Isnora was “very upset” by the indictment, said Karasyk, “but he is confident that once he has his day in court he will be vindicated.”

For Officer Michael Carey, who was not indicted, the overriding emotion was relief.

His lawyer, Stephen Worth, said Carey greatly appreciated “that the grand jury understood and vindicated his actions.”

The Rev. Al Sharpton said the indictments were not cause for celebration.

“Charges are not convictions, and convictions … will not bring back Sean Bell,” Sharpton said. “It certainly will not repair the emotional scars.”

The decision followed three days of grand jury deliberations as New Yorkers anxiously awaited word on the fate of the officers.

Extra police officers were put on standby and the mayor met with black leaders in the Queens neighborhood where shooting occurred in hopes of defusing any possible tensions.

The indictments come nearly four months after Bell, 23, was shot and killed and two of his friends, Trent Benefield, 23, and Joseph Guzman, 31, were wounded in a shooting that led to angry protests and accusations of racism against the NYPD.

The case also brought back painful memories of other infamous police shootings in New York City, including the killing of unarmed African immigrant Amadou Diallo in 1999. The officers in that case were acquitted of criminal charges.

Police union officials defended the officers in the current case, arguing they were responding to reasonable suspicions the victims were armed and dangerous.

The victims were black; three of the officers are black and two white.

“There was no criminality in their hearts, nor in their minds, when they took the actions they took,” Michael Palladino, president of the Detectives’ Endowment Association, said before the grand jurors’ decision was revealed.

The grand jurors had been instructed to consider several charges: second-degree murder, manslaughter or criminally negligent homicide stemming from Bell’s death; and attempted murder, assault or reckless endangerment in the wounding of Benefield and Guzman.

The deliberations were interrupted at one point after the emergence of a last-minute witness, whose story seemed to back up the officers’ claim that they were justified in opening fire. But the credibility of the witness was not known.

The five officers were among the more than 60 witnesses who testified before the grand jury. Benefield and Guzman also gave their version, insisting the officers fired without warning.

The incident began on Nov. 25, 2006, at the Kalua Cabaret, a topless bar that was the site of Bell’s bachelor party. The club had a history of prostitution and drug complaints, making it a target for a roving undercover vice team.

Undercover officers went inside the club at about 1 a.m. to chat up dancers “for the purpose of arranging sex for payment,” a police report said.

At closing, the officers focused on one dispute involving Bell’s party and a man outside the club, possibly over a woman. Guzman, the report said, was overheard saying, “Yo. Get my gun. Get my gun.”

Isnora, a detective who had entered the club unarmed and undercover, retrieved his weapon and followed the three men on foot as they rounded a corner and headed toward their gray Nissan Altima parked on Liverpool Street. According to the police report, the undercover told a supervising police lieutenant in a cell phone call: “It’s getting hot on Liverpool, for real. I think there’s a gun.”

When Isnora approached the car driven by Bell, it lurched forward and bumped him, then twice rammed into an unmarked police minivan, police said. The undercover claimed through his lawyer that, after pulling out his badge and identifying himself as a police officer, he spotted one of the men make a suspicious move, prompting Isnora to squeeze off 11 rounds.

Before the vehicle came to a stop, Oliver fired 31 bullets, reloading once. Tests show that a bullet fired from his gun killed Bell, authorities said.

All were armed with 9mm semiautomatic pistols.

Many New Yorkers could not avoid comparisons with the shooting of Diallo, who was gunned down in a fusillade of 41 shots on the stoop of his Bronx apartment. The four involved officers said he fit the description of a rape suspect, and they mistook his wallet for a gun.

The officers were acquitted of criminal charges in a 2000 trial, but Diallo’s mother got a $3 million settlement.

To some, the 41 shots in the Diallo case and the 50 shots in the Bell case became symbolic of excessive police force against black New Yorkers.

In the Bell case, Sharpton said the families were not seeking revenge.

“We’re looking for it to not happen again,” Sharpton said. “The only way you make sure it doesn’t happen again is you stop it, and you punish it and you send a signal that we live in a society where laws have to be respected.”