A New Year’s Day shooting in which a subway police officer fired a deadly shot into the back of an unarmed man has the San Francisco Bay Area demanding answers as authorities appeal for patience…
The young men had been celebrating the new year at a popular waterfront tourist spot, The Embarcadero. They were heading home when police pulled them from the train car. Some of the young men were handcuffed, but not 22-year-old Oscar Grant. The video from the anonymous passenger shows Grant seated on the floor with his back against the wall.
Grant holds up his hands, appearing to plead with police. Burris said Tuesday that Grant was asking police not to use a Taser.
Seconds later, police put Grant face-down on the ground. Grant appears to struggle. One of the officers kneels on Grant as another officer stands up, tugs at his gun, unholsters it and fires a shot into Grant’s back.
The bullet went through Grant’s back and then ricocheted off the floor and through his lungs. Grant…died seven hours later, KTVU reported.
Unconscionable, unforgivable.
He appears to be resisting arrest to me.
In any case, I don’t think this is a good application for a tazer either. Three cops should have been able to cuff him. Of course, none of us were there.
Confusion aside about pistols and tasers, this guy shouldn’t have been tasered. Police use tasers as a torture weapon and teasers should be outlawed.
#29 Les
>Of course, none of us were there.
We all were there. Two videos so far, I’ll bet there are more. But with the two they got they’ll be able set up a complete 3d simulation of the entire scene. Who knows maybe they’ll even be able to filter the sound and get the exact dialogs. This crime cannot go unpunished.
#1 ten years? How about the e-Chair
29,
It’s too bad police officers are not trained in non-violent apprehension and containment of an unarmed individual. Especially when multiple officers are working together.
Perhaps the BART officers should encourage their supervisors to train them in hand-to-hand tactics rather than automatically instructing them to retrieve their lethal and / or non-lethal weapons only.
Right?
Everyone hates the cops, until they need one.
He looks like a rookie who made a very bad mistake.
#20 So then we can change the summation to, “Careless cop mistakenly guns down unarmed black kid in cold blood.” Is that better ?
Really? People think this cop was surprised about what happened? And like Paddy-O has already said, it’s nearly impossible to mistake a pistol for a taser – even blindfolded. Watch the video again: this guy reaches for his gun while he’s helping pin down the victim, stands, points the gun down, pauses, then fires. If that’s an “accident”, I have no idea what a real pre-meditated action is.
If I went tomorrow and ran down a traffic cop with my truck and said I mistook my brake for my gas pedal, who would believe me? You’re absolutely correct, nobody would believe me.
#34,
He looks like a rookie who made a very bad mistake.
Irrelevant. If I start driving an 18 wheeler and end up crushing a school bus the first week, I will not be excused. That this cop even pulled gun / tazer was wrong and inexcusable.
to me it looks like a horrible accident, but thats it, and accident. Police today have to carry crazy amounts of equipment on themselves at all times. So Lets go thru it. You have:
A police issued pistol + 2 extra clips of ammo.
2 sets of handcuffs
A radio for communication.
A personal cell phone just in case
A can of mace
A tazer
An extendable Baton
now add all that to the stressful situation the officer’s were in. The crowd didn’t help the situation by standing there recording the event, adding a running commentary the whole time and yelling for the cops to let them go.
and lets be brutally honest here, those people that took pictures and video of the event got exactly what they wanted and were hoping for. They can say their shocked and outraged by the actions of the cops, but everyone of them hoped someone would be tazered, beaten, or shot by the cops so they could then run home and blog/twitter/youtube the account for the world to see & they could get their 15 minutes too.
oh, and if there’s video of the shooting, then there video of the fight on the subway platform before the shooting and before the cops arrived. Don’t just show the part that will give you the most ratings on TV or hits on youtube.
P.S. Girlfriend no money, parents of deceased some money, daughter of deceased decent amount of money in trust fund to guarantee mom and grandparents don’t blow it all on stupid shit
The shooter cop should be destroyed like an animal or worse. Like vermin. I say hanging would be too good for him. The guillotine sounds about right for this sub-human scum. Unless of course there is a good reason for the shooting. If so, I take it all back. I seriously doubt there was a good reason but just in case…
A “higher up” at the Oakland Police department was interviewed by a Bay Area TV station last night and said that officers are NOT to carry their taser and gun on the same side. Reports are that the officer in question had his taser drawn earlier that evening which makes the leap that he mistakenly drew his gun instead of taser harder to swallow. However the other officers did release the victim and stand back as they would if the victim was going to be tasered.
Don’t know .. sad and inexcusable.
This is precisely why cameras in phones will be outlawed soon. Mark my words. This crisis will bring a reduction in civil rights, you just watch.
How would this have played out if there was no video?
I don’t understand how this is not murder.
#35,
I would buy:
“Careless cop mistakenly shoots unarmed drunk on New Years.” Thats better
I’m just stunned…WTF???
#43,
If he thought he was using his taser, it’s not murder, probably manslaughter, because he did not have the intent to kill. If he knew he was using his gun, then it murder. I don’t see how he could possibly have thought it was his gun watching the video.
#31,
no we were not there. Video is not being there.
And the lesson of the day is…..if you don’t want to be accidently shot instead of tasered, cooperate with the police.
Here in New York, our cops shoot unarmed people more often. However, at least it’s usually a mistake. This was an execution.
Anyone who has ever held both a taser and a pistol knows that you can’t confuse the two. If any of us “civilians” tried to use this excuse, we’d be thrown in prison for life.
The cop should be executed.
I agree with #30 Perkel. Tasers being non-lethal has turned them into Torture Weapons.
How bizarro, with all the gun nuts on the board you would think even a single one would know that the only reason you put your finger on the trigger is to fire the gun. You never put your finger on the trigger otherwise.
What you are seeing right there is a summary execution. The cop deserves to be charged with premeditated murder. I belevie that is a capital offense in California.
From reading the comments after posting mine, if that was a mistake, then it’s still at least manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide or other serious offense. I don’t personally see even the need for a taser based on this video.
I’ll wait to hear the statement from the police in question. However, I can’t see anything mitigating this incident that should result in the officer not ending up in jail.
At a minimum, the three officers already had the unarmed victim on the ground and were not fighting multiple people at once. This did not require even the use of a taser, let alone a gun in my admittedly untrained opinion.
#54,
Well, remember all three cops are guilty of capital murder crimes, as California has felony murder statutes. I know for a fact that we will not see all three of these cops receive the death penalty(or even the shooter). So there will never be true justice.
For a cop that trains with his gun on a normal basis I do not buy he grabbed his gun by mistake. The taser and the gun have different grips, different trigger pulls, and they look a hell of lot different when you have them in front of you. Not to mention they come from completely different kinds of retention type holsters. I hope this cop gets charged with murder.
#56,
It is not enough that this thug be charged with murder. His accomplices need to go under the needle as well.
There is more than one video of this. On the first video posted at liveleak.com you can hear the mob chanting and taunting the cops long before that guy got shot.
He was fighting and resisting arrest. The cop was scared because the lawless mob was chanting and taunting the cops. He felt that while this guy was resisting the mob could charge at them. I feel very sorry for the cops. Those animals asked for something like this to happen watch the other videos on this and you will see.