BART Shooting
 

Nothing about the BART shooting? I hadn't heard anything about it myself, but my g/f was at a meeting in Oaktown and they cleared the building and sent everyone home because things are getting out of hand.

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I am keeping a very close eye on this I support some buisness that isn't too far from where there could be potential rioting.

Wow, thats not good.

Front page stuff if you're in the Bay Area. The (now ex-) cop/shooter will likely do time (if others don't follow through with their death-threats on him), and there will be a sizable settlement for the dead guy's family.

And how about some riots:

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As a side-note, some think taking BART instead of driving on New Year's Eve is good idea. Not exactly what I consider to be a safe place at that time.

Yes, I've been following. The multiple videos of the incident from different angles sure seem damning... the officer just pulls his gun and shoots the guy. The officer's reaction immediately after the shot is fired seems odd though... as if he didn't know that pulling the trigger was going to put a bullet into the guy's back. Inexplicable IMHO.

wow flat out murder. im speechless

what a world we live in

First I've heard of it. I can't believe after Rodney King this would still happen, and as much as I'd like to hear the other side of the story, because I really do believe there are 2 sides to every story, pictures and video don't lie. 3+ cops on one guy does NOT lead to a life threatening situation. This is SF, not Baghdad.

A leading theory is he thought he was using his Taser instead of his pistol. The officer resigned yesterday (which is understandable), but that also allowed him to skip the Internal Affairs interview.

Forgive me for being unfamiliar with hand weapons, but surely there must be obvious difference such as safety release, etc?

That cop should be in jail, awaiting his arraignment for murder.

The videos look very bad.

The officer who fired looks surprised or shocked after the shot. Perhaps his defense will be that he thought he was drawing and discharging a Taser. Not saying I'd buy that, but he's going to use some defense.

The shooter's taser was on the other (left) side of his utility belt, and pictures taken shortly before the shooting show that he had drawn the taser with his right hand, going across his body.

slightly clearer video:

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Manslaughter as least. He either made a terrible mistake, or.....I don't know. He over reacted? To what? It sure didn't look like the guy was putting up a huge fight. And what kind of lunatic shoots his gun straight down at a guy with a concrete floor beneath? Lucky the bullet didn't ricochet and kill someone else.

No matter which way you cut it, its ugly.

This kind of crap is getting out of hand. Why are cops not held accountable when they break laws?

This poor guy was shot in his front yard when he questioned a cop pushing his mother around an no one but the cops committed any crimes.

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Racial_profiling_suspected_in_shooting_of_0108.htm l

First I've heard of this, hard to comprehend.

What do you do if you are one of the other guys? Your friend is shot by a cop, are you next? Do you chance it and run for your life or just assume everything is ok and you will live?

What's weird is I live in the Sacramento area - about an hour away - and not only had I not heard anything about it, but I was reading the local paper last weekend at a coffee shop, and I didn't see any articles about it.

The only good explanation that I can come up with is that the guy got his gun out just in case, and put his finger on the trigger. With his finger on the trigger, in the excitement, he could have accidentally applied pressure to the trigger. That would mean that the shooting was a VERY bad mistake at best.

Yeah, really sucks.

There is nothing that cop could say, no explanation he could give, that would in any way justify or mitigate what he did. Man, that is bad, really bad. Totally inexcusable.

the cop resigned.

I just talked to a cop friend who said that his resignation probably means that it was a bad shoot and he knows it.