Hopefully, I don't need to tell you about the Oscar Grant case. Oscar Grant was an unarmed BART passenger who was shot by a BART police officer on New Year's Day. A new video has emerged showing that moments before he was killed, Grant was punched in the face, but not by Johannes Mehserle, the BART officer who shot him.I'm not going to judge any of the police actions (and make no mistake, BART police are police, not security) here; it should be noted that they were originally called over a disturbance on BART. It should also be noted that while Mehserle has been charged with murder, it's been theorized that he had been trying to use his Taser on Grant, and mistakenly pulled his gun. BART police had apparently only been issued Tasers within a few weeks of the incident.
If that were truly the case, Mehserle could only be charged with manslaughter, based on the definition of murder.
And in any case, the shooting of Oscar Grant does not give citizens the right to riot and destroy property, as SF Bay Area protesters have done in this case.
The officer shown punching Grant in the face is the same officer who investigators say had his knee on Grant's neck when the 22-year-old was shot. No BART officers have been charged aside from Mehserle.
KTVU, a local TV station, said they had exclusive video of the new footage. They took the video to UC Hastings and Golden Gate law professor Peter Keane who said the following:
That officer is committing a crime. That's a pretty brutal punch. It just knocks his head back and sends him to the ground.U.C. Berkeley law school professor Franklin Zimring, also showed the video, said:
If the district attorney is saying he's not going to charge any officer except Mehserle in my opinion, he's not doing his job.
Police officers are not by virtue of their legal status, immunized from the normal laws that govern when assault is criminal conduct.Watch the video, first broadcast on KTVU on January 25, 2009, obtained via Raw Replay.
3 comments:
There's a political price to pay for the mishandling and egregious acts of BART Police Officers on the station platform that night. Here's a bit of what we've written on the issue calling for the Chief of Police's resignation:
http://californiabeat.wordpress.com/2009/01/28/can-the-public-trust-the-bart-police-department/
And keep up to date on this story through our special section dedicated to the developments on the BART shooting incident:
http://californiabeat.wordpress.com/bartshooting/
A new video has emerged showing that moments before he was killed, Grant was punched in the face
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