This forum is for non aviation related topics, political debate, random thoughts, and everything else that just doesn't seem to fit in the normal forums. ALL FORUM RULES STILL APPLY.
(01-04) 19:38 PST Oakland -- BART's police chief asked for patience from the public on Sunday after video footage surfaced showing one of his officers fatally shooting an unarmed man who was on the ground on a station platform on New Year's Day, and after an attorney for the dead man's family said he planned to sue the transit agency for $25 million.
Chief Gary Gee said he, too, had seen video images of the shooting of Oscar Grant, a 22-year-old supermarket worker from Hayward. But Gee said he found the footage to be inconclusive, and he said his investigators still needed to interview a key witness - the officer himself.
Inconclusive? Inconclusive?! He fucking shot the guy, the guy who was laying on his stomach, subdued on the floor. What the hell is inconclusive about that? He exicuted the guy. I love the "He may have thought it was his Tazer" excuse.
looproll wrote:That's terrible. The bottom video really shows it. Unreal. He must have thought he was holding a taser.
I don't see any reason why he could think he needed a taser. The guy wasn't doing anything. The cop just stood up and shot him. Unless he was blind, he would have seen that the weapon in his hand wasn't a taser. Look at the last video. He looked down the sights, pistol in both hands, and shot him. I have never been more disgusted with a cop in my life. They are supposed to enforce the law, not break it. If you or I did this and claimed we did it in self defense, we'd be able to get manslaughter at best. What a bastard.
I don't see that recording it all will change certain people's opinions of what they believe are the "facts". The phrase "some people see what they want to see" is applicable here.
I viewed only a few of the sites which have posts of the video but many of the people who made comments about it have a much different opinion of what occured than I do. The word "murder" comes up alot.
I look at the video and see what many people say is a subdued person and yet even into the second before the one cop stands, draws his weapon and the shot is fired the suspect is still moving so much that the second cop is still applying pressure to keep him on the floor. If he was passive and compliant would there be any need to keep applying force to keep him on the floor?
You can't tell from the video why the cop drew his weapon or why it fired. Many comments say the cop fired his weapon deliberately and that makes it murder. Try imagining this cop feeling tense and wound up from both the suspect continuing to move unnecessarily and from the large crowd gathered nearby shouting derogatory comments. Try understanding that drawing his weapon was (probably) a huge error since there wasn't any real threat to him but that he may have been thinking along the lines of "If I have a weapon in my hand, he will realize this is serious and stop moving". Understand that he may have placed his finger on the trigger naturally as part of holding it and the tenseness in his finger placed unfortunate pressure on the trigger causing the weapon to fire and you have a case for gross criminal negligence, but not murder. I've seen a similar video of a female cop shooting a suspect that was handcuffed facedown on the street and it was obvious that like the BART cop, she wasn't trying to commit murder either.
The BART cop resigning is inevitable but I'm very curious as to why he wasn't arrested immediately. How does resigning mean he doesn't have to face questions related to his actions?
---------- ADS -----------
Last edited by GilletteNorth on Thu Jan 08, 2009 9:42 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Having a standard that pilots lose their licence after making a mistake despite doing no harm to aircraft or passengers means soon you needn't worry about a pilot surplus or pilots offering to fly for free. Where do you get your experience from?
Most people have never seen a gang fight or how to defend yourself when surrounded by an angry mob.
I am suprised at how calm the cops were .I would have shot the first idiot to run at me with something in his hand.
How dumb or drunk do you have to be not to realize that running at an armed person with something in your hand is not the smartest move you could make .
Why was the mob angry at the police before the shooting ?
And who was that crazy woman that started playing chicken running at armed police officers ?
You can't tell squat about what happened from these videos beyond that a gun was discharged. Leaping to the conclusion he "executed" or murdered the guy is stupid - at this point nobody but that cop has any idea what he was thinking or intending to do. Maybe he made a mistake and drew the wrong weapon, maybe the pistol malfunctioned, maybe there's other video that shows the suspect pulling something looking like a gun from under his clothes, maybe he plain f'd up and pulled the trigger by mistake, maybe someone bumped him, maybe something was thrown from the crowd and struck him, and maybe he pulled out his gun and shot him for absolutely no reason at all. A couple minutes of crappy cellphone video doesn't tell you much. There will likely be better video available from security cameras and other people, and no shortage of witnesses to interview.
Even if the cop thought he was holding his taser, my question is what the hell did he need to taser for? the victim was on the ground, maybe getting lippy, but not resisting arrest. There was NO reason for the cop to draw any weapon.
---------- ADS -----------
The feet you step on today might be attached to the ass you're kissing tomorrow.
Chase lifestyle not metal.
The Officer involved seemed genuinely surprised after, and most likely did not intend the discharge, however as covered under California Penal Code sect.192(b)
192. Manslaughter is the unlawful killing of a human being without
malice. It is of three kinds:
(a) Voluntary--upon a sudden quarrel or heat of passion. (b) Involuntary--in the commission of an unlawful act, not
amounting to felony; or in the commission of a lawful act which might
produce death, in an unlawful manner, or without due caution and
circumspection.
Keep your god damned finger off the trigger, unless your going to shoot. my 7 year old knows that.
