Posted on 01/26/2009 2:12:13 PM PST by Navy Patriot
BART officials said Saturday that they will investigate the actions of one of the transit agency's police officers after a video surfaced showing the officer striking a passenger - apparently Oscar Grant - minutes before the unarmed young man was fatally shot by another officer early on New Year's Day.
The cell phone video, one of a handful that have surfaced, aired Friday night on KTVU-TV. It shows a male BART police officer walking over to three men lined up against a wall near a female officer, and then striking one in the face.
The victim of the punch - identified by Channel 2 as 22-year-old Grant - slides to the ground. The video then shows the moments preceding the shooting, then the shooting itself. It appears that the officer who punches the man is the same person who later is seen kneeling on Grant's head when he was shot.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Interestingly all these videos went to the media first rather than to police or prosecutors.
Big money for the trial lawyers here.
Still very little info on how bad an actor Oscar Grant was (if at all), both before and during incident.
I really wish we had more info out there. This whole thing doesn’t make sense (unless the Bart officers really are just a totally out of control group who kill at will—and I can’t buy that yet).
“Interestingly all these videos went to the media first rather than to police or prosecutors.”
Why would they trust the police or prosecutors? If it was my video I might or might not go to my lawyer. That probably didn’t even occur to these people plus they probably couldn’t afford a lawyer.
In the long run, this is good. The people are being captured on video everywhere. If law enforcement is as well, it will level the playing field.
It is good that cops understand that whatever they are doing, it could be caught on video and used against them later.
Just like the rest of us.
The BART cops are an out of control bunch of bullies. There needs to be a thorough house cleaning starting with the upper BART management. On top of the abuses seen in the video’s the BART cops illegally confiscated any cameras or phones they say in the vicinity of the crime.
“Still very little info on how bad an actor Oscar Grant was (if at all), both before and during incident.”
I’ve a hunch he couldn’t have been THAT good an actor if the police had him face down on the platform. Not that I think it excuses the police’s actions in this case.
These videos often put the screws to the liars.
This particular incident looks real bad for the cops.
I don’t care how bad of an actor he was. Unless he killed someone else, he didn’t deserve to be killed, and unless he was an immediate danger to the police, he shouldn’t have been shot like that.
Making no judgments here ... but what led to these guys being lined up in the first place? Were they selected at random, or were they misbehaving?
This was obviously an AD as no officer is going to purposely shoot a suspect in front of dozens of witnesses and with another officer that close to the muzzle of his weapon.
Oscar and friends went out looking for trouble that night and they found it.
By “interestingly” I was referring to the tendency of ordinary people to become cunning.
I see.
Hard to trust jackbooted thugs sometimes.
No such thing as an "accidental" discharge ...
It's a NEGLIGENT Discharge (at best) ... and that negligence (at best) killed somebody.
The Jury will have to decide, but it has just gotten much harder to sell it to 'em.
We used to think that no officer of our government would shoot law-abiding citizens in the back or burn their homes down around them, but we learned otherwise....
Please recite it.
True. See Duke Lacrosse Frame.
Generally, and in this case, I agree with that principle.
I don’t care how bad of an actor he was.
To an extent this is not as easily dismissible. A known bad actor has the possibility of being personally known to, and identifiable by one or more individual cops on the scene. This can legitimately go to probable cause for more scrutiny. It's a fact of life, but as I said, I don't have the information here.
There was one or more telephone reports of a fight on a BART train, no BART police witnessed the "fight". The train was stopped at the Fruitvale station and held long enough for the next train to arrive and be blocked by the first train. After this, things get sketchy.
There is no information on how BART police identified the men they removed from the first train, or probable cause. Very difficult situation.
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