Police Execution?

R u a cop? As I said the burden of proof from what i understand is the suspect must pose a life-threatening risk to the officers or bystanders to justify lethal force. R u seriously contending anything about that looked life threatening?
I like others here do not really have a clue why the officer fired at the kid but watch the second video again. It looks to me that the officer is trying to get the guys arm out from under him and behind his back. When he finally gets his arm out thats when he steps back and fires at the boy. To me it looks like the officer saw something in his hand that may have looked like a gun and he reacted. Then again he could have just shot the kid but that to me just does not make sense with all the witnesses standing around.

I like others here do not really have a clue why the officer fired at the kid but watch the second video again. It looks to me that the officer is trying to get the guys arm out from under him and behind his back. When he finally gets his arm out thats when he steps back and fires at the boy. To me it looks like the officer saw something in his hand that may have looked like a gun and he reacted. Then again he could have just shot the kid but that to me just does not make sense with all the witnesses standing around.


He has one officer knee on his head and this guy on his bottom side, on top of that he is faced down. I don't know if he had anything on him but it doesn't makes sense for the officer to get off of him, stand back, wait for the other officer to get off of him, take a few seconds to get his gun out and shoot. Something is wrong with your mental picture, not the video.


This is not Brazil, we're "a nation of laws."

vlDVaEWsmRo

He has one officer knee on his head and this guy on his bottom side, on top of that he is faced down. I don't know if he had anything on him but it doesn't makes sense for the officer to get off of him, stand back, wait for the other officer to get off of him, take a few seconds to get his gun out and shoot. Something is wrong with your mental picture, not the video.


This is not Brazil, we're "a nation of laws."

vlDVaEWsmRo

Yea, the whole thing is strange I guess I just have a hard time believing that the officer in that situation with all those whitnesses would do that.

Police brutality - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_brutality)



The whole article is very interesting, and various numbers and statistics provide reasons to be cynical.
I tried to find some sort of statistic that showed the statement "But police kill people a lot in this country" from djnemo65 to be factual, but couldn't. Partly, it depends on your definition of "a lot".
Googling "police brutality statistics" gives several interesting articles.

It was an anecdotal claim, one that can't be verified with statistics since those types of statistics aren't kept by the DOJ. Even if they were, you can't qualify "a lot" as "factual" since it's a relative term.

Anyway, the issue is not the incidence of police violence in this country (which I'm guessing falls somewhere between Denmark and Zaire, although I don't know and neither do you) but rather the acquittal rate of police officers accused of excessive violence, often in spite of inculpating evidence. Again, speaking anecdotally, the police have walked with little to no punishment in almost every case I can remember. I found it particularly illustrative that, in this case, in which a video and witness testimony appear to be pretty damning for the officer, you have taken it upon yourself to be this cop’s Jonny Cochran - questioning the credibility of the video and witness and everything but the officer himself. I think in such a case as this it is important that we hold the officer to the same standards we hold other citizens. While we all accept the officer’s right to use lethal force when necessary, this comes with limits, and in this case they appear to have been breached.

I like others here do not really have a clue why the officer fired at the kid but watch the second video again. It looks to me that the officer is trying to get the guys arm out from under him and behind his back. When he finally gets his arm out thats when he steps back and fires at the boy. To me it looks like the officer saw something in his hand that may have looked like a gun and he reacted. Then again he could have just shot the kid but that to me just does not make sense with all the witnesses standing around.I have to disagree with you. I think that if the officer felt that the victim may have had a weapon he would have acted faster, and altered the other officers. He just seemed to pull his gun out kind of slowly, IMO, like maybe he was just going to threaten the victim and it went off. I also think that if the cop thought he saw a weapon that would have been reported right away because it offers at least some kind of justification.
I kind of agree with MRedskins in that it almost seems like he was going for his taser, but I have no idea how he could have made a mistake like that.

In any case, that is completely horrible and I think that officer needs to be fired immediately and he should face some at least some kind of negligence charges.

Spokesman: Officer in subway shooting has resigned - CNN.com (http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/01/07/BART.shooting/index.html)

Witnesses say the poor kid had been encouraging those in his group to cooperate and stay calm. He also asked not to be "tased" because he had a young daughter.

Negligent discharge would be my best guess.

'Execution' is way too incendiary a word but 'Accident' doesn't go far enough.

Negligent discharge would be my best guess.

'Execution' is way too incendiary a word but 'Accident' doesn't go far enough.


What about the Brazilian Police video?

It was an anecdotal claim, one that can't be verified with statistics since those types of statistics aren't kept by the DOJ. Even if they were, you can't qualify "a lot" as "factual" since it's a relative term.

Anyway, the issue is not the incidence of police violence in this country (which I'm guessing falls somewhere between Denmark and Zaire, although I don't know and neither do you) but rather the acquittal rate of police officers accused of excessive violence, often in spite of inculpating evidence. Again, speaking anecdotally, the police have walked with little to no punishment in almost every case I can remember. I found it particularly illustrative that, in this case, in which a video and witness testimony appear to be pretty damning for the officer, you have taken it upon yourself to be this cop’s Jonny Cochran - questioning the credibility of the video and witness and everything but the officer himself. I think in such a case as this it is important that we hold the officer to the same standards we hold other citizens. While we all accept the officer’s right to use lethal force when necessary, this comes with limits, and in this case they appear to have been breached.
I really wasn't trying to question the credibility, just pointing out limitations on what was shown. The same standard as other citizens would theoretically be "innocent until proven guilty" but we all know that is a joke.

finally, here is another view, this one is much clearer, I believe as you can hear the onlookers comments and get a better feel. And yes it does look like the guard came in with a purpose and intent to "get this guy".

New Footage of Oakland Man Murdered By BART Cop : Indybay (http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/01/06/18559091.php)

I'm going overly aggressive dumb cop committing gross negligence. IF he freaked out and meant to grab the taser but grabbed his gun and still followed through with his intent to fire at the victim then he needs to find a different, less stressful job. He's already resigned but I don't think he should ever be employed as a law enforcement official and the BART should pay the $20 million, or whatever, to the victim's family.

No matter what angle you see this with, this sucks all around for everyone.