San Francisco police assassinate restrained man

[bcholmes]

Jesus.

On New Year’s morning, the San Francisco BART police — yes, transit cops — dragged a bunch of young men off a train, including Oscar Grant. An officer then proceeded to execute Grant of them with a gunshot through the back, while he was restrained and lying face-down on the ground.

Video at the link.

Edit: the cop has resigned.

Comments

[rbowspryte.livejournal.com]

Holy sh*t! The comments by newscasters were kind about it still being "under investigation".

IMO It's the total faith and belief of some people out there that this kind of thing can't happen that let's it happen.

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

Someone once said to me, in passing, that there was a time that you couldn't convince people that the unions weren't a good thing and that the police could be trusted. And now, enough PR has gone into reversing those perceptions.

[laura-seabrook.livejournal.com]

Police deal with "maintaining the public order" which isn't the same as "upholding the law" - doesn't matter what their guidelines and charters say, and all police are the same. And most of the time it's the police who decide what that is. I wish I could say otherwise but my experience says otherwise.

There was no possible excuse for killing a restrained person like that.

[blueinva.livejournal.com]

The third video is pretty damning - there's a policeman going to face a murder charge because of this. Wrong, and tragic.

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

As we speak, big protests (http://www.kcbs.com/Protest-Over-BART-Shooting-Turns-Violent--Officer-/3617394) with an apparently somewhat nasty edge are just winding down.

I can't bring myself to watch the videos.

[mizalaina.livejournal.com]

I...

[laura-seabrook.livejournal.com]

WHAT!!!

When I was coming back from Palenville in 2006, I had a forced layover in SF. Someone I met there suggested we travel the BART all day on $US 5, which is pretty much what we did. Obviously not as safe as she thought. :(