Quote:
Originally Posted by competentone
I do find it disturbing the way people will sit behind their keyboards and be critical of officers in an extremely stressful situation. It is obvious some of you have never been on the streets in potentially dangerous situations.
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Or handled firearms... Or practiced law... I too looked at the available videos frame-by-frame. It looks like a case of negligent handling of a handgun in a highly-charged and stressful situation. He doesn't aim the gun at the man on the ground. It's pointing right at him as it is drawn from the officer's holster and already had a cartridge in the chamber because guns had already been drawn and holstered earlier. All it takes is an errant finger. I've seen situations where handguns were discharged into the leg of the person drawing the gun, with similarly fatal results. Under California law this is at most misdemeanor Involuntary Manslaughter. It is only because of the politically-charged situation that this isn't being treated simply as a tragic accident. I can't tell if the officer decided to draw his firearm because the decedent appeared to constitute a threat or whether he saw a threat from the crowd. I now doubt that he'll ever tell us why he drew his firearm because he is faced with a witch-hunt environment. Instead he gave up his career and his pension to avoid making statements which could be turned against him in a politically-motivated prosecution.
The people to blame are EVERY belligerent drunk on that BART platform. If they were behaving themselves, none of these tragic events would have unfolded.