Yet Another Depressing News Post

[l33tminion]

Looks like the UN Security Council passed a resolution in favor of a Gaza cease-fire after all on Friday, with the US abstaining. On the other hand, looks like Congress will be passing an "all in favor of Israel killing whoever the hell they want" resolution, with Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul the only ones against.

I've also been following the story of Oscar Grant, shot in the back by transit police when he was lying helpless, face-down on the floor, in front of a bunch of witnesses, some of whom were on the train and thus got away with video recordings of the crime. Needless to say, people were angry although it seems that rioting has been minimal. I certainly hope that Johannes Mehserle, the officer responsible, is charged with second-degree murder.

Just posting what's on my mind... Now go play this and cheer up, I guess.

Comments

[chiaki777.livejournal.com]

Mmm, Fruitvale, that's the place where people die every week. Granted, the officer seems fairly at fault for breaking down under the circumstances. The BART operator did a good job is closing the doors to get out of there before the police could do anything else to the gathered crowd.

While rioting was minimal, the situation I saw on the film was something very close to it. There were people out on the platform, police officers established a very small safety perimeter between them and the rest of the train (which was ROARING in anger with typical slurs of "Fuck the pigs" and all that).

I'm concerned about a few things the local media isn't covering, why were they stopped, and why did the train stay there so long? The nature of the situation wouldn't warrant shooting a suspect, but the stress of the time could trigger hasty and sub par decisions.

The portrayal by KTVU, the general population is that of unfathomable man-slaughter. People get the presented bias that what transpired was a crime. I might be inclined to agree so, but without clearly knowing why his friends were even being stopped and having a train full of angry people seemingly about to pounce is what I need to prod at. I amend this phrase to say, the man was caught with his friends for fighting on board the train. I suppose this raises even more questions on how and why, who was involved, and how police interrogation procedures were employed to lead to that conclusion....

If anything, they shot the wrong guy. That is an offense, I'll give you that.

[l33tminion]

From the video, it seemed that the situation was pretty much resolved by the time the guy was shot. Even if the police were worried about the crowd, the suspects were already subdued. Plus, shooting guys on the ground is a really poor form of crowd control.

Anyways, California put out a fugitive warrant for Mehserle's arrest on charges of homicide, and he was arrested in Nevada.

[chiaki777.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm not saying he was a model officer. I'm just noting that there were people coming onto the platform and approaching the officers. The overall situation was "stressful" to say the least. It's not defense, but his misjudgment can be explained.

[l33tminion]

If we can't expect police officers to not murder people every time they're in a stressful situation, we're in a lot of trouble. Heck, I'm pretty sure we even expect ordinary people to get through stressful situations without murdering anyone.

What are you arguing here? If you're saying that it's not sufficient to throw the guy in jail without an examination of the larger system, you're right. If you're saying he shouldn't be thrown in jail, you're dead wrong. Personal responsibility aside, allowing police officers to kill with impunity does bad things to a society.

[chiaki777.livejournal.com]

Oh no, he's not officer material. He should be in jail. I'm saying here that while the media is so flabbergasted with this spectacle on why he shot Oscar, I want to know why the BART train didn't launch the train immediately after the arrests. The police also failed to secure a proper perimeter to question suspects, leading to a situation in which the officer (who is clearly not fit for duty) shot one of the people he was questioning.

I'm trying to ask people, why was the situation like the way it was there? I think it could have been better in the first place, yet we dismiss the notion and go straight to the hype: an officer shot a man lying face down on the ground.

[l33tminion]

Hopefully, some of that stuff will come out in the court case and the internal investigation (I don't think anyone in the media has obtained any info from those interviews yet) and get the attention it deserves.

However, I wouldn't describe it as "hype". Focusing on the murderer first is justified. This is huge in terms of affirming the rule of law. It's very rare for an officer to be charged with murder for killing someone while on duty, no matter how egregious the circumstances.