[Jotapay]

NEWS LINK

Unbelievable. Or maybe not.

Two videos showing a Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer fatally shooting an unarmed, cooperating 22-year-old man have surfaced, thanks to a vigilant teen and an anonymous cameraman.

Stay classy, San Francisco!

[smallpoxgirl]

It wasn't SF PD. It was BART PD. That's been a source of contention for a long time because municipal police departments are held in check to some extent by community pressure. SF PD has to answer to the people of SF and to a civilian review board. For BART PD, there is no such animal. They are answerable only to BART administration. Suing them is about the only way to bring pressure on them.

[Jotapay]

Yes, thanks for clarifying that. And I believe that it happened in Oakland too, not San Fran like I posted.

[mefistofeles]

In all fairness to the officiers we don't know how the weapon was discharged, although at this point I strongly suspect it was probably an accident.

If you listen to the audio it seems as though the officiers were in the middle of a near riot situation. There is plenty of shouting before the gunshot, and its not coming from the officers.

The officiers were surrounded by what appears to be a hostile crowd, although I can't say if this justifies discharging a firearm into a man.

However in the context of the situation I suspect one of the officiers' simply had too much adrenaline in his system and accidently pulled the trigger.

Now of course that calls into question why the officier had his weapon drawn. Most civilian police departments have stupid use of force rules which allow an officier to pull out a weapon but not discharge it. Military police units wouldn't have this problem because military police can't pull out a weapon unless they intend to discharge it.

It looked like a scary situation for the police and could have escalated far beyond what had actually occured.

Although the headlines imply that the police simply shot an unarmed man in the back the situation seems to be much more complicated,at least from the footage that I saw.

[Jotapay]

In all fairness to the officiers we don't know how the weapon was discharged, although at this point I strongly suspect it was probably an accident.

Of course I know how it happened. His finger pulled the trigger. Guns aren't magic bottle rockets that just go off for no reason.

He shouldn't have pulled his gun out anyway. There was no need. The guy was begging not to be tased or shot. Did you see the video, they were in the middle of hog tying him when they shot him.

This cop was completely incompetent in handling his pistol. If you are basically on someone's back with your knee, you do NOT pull out a gun right then unless you are in a fight for your life. Anything can happen at that point and you are in much too unstable of a position to fire your weapon with any sure chance of hitting your target.

[mefistofeles]

He shouldn't have pulled his gun out anyway.

That's why its important to know BART's use of force policy. As I said before many departments allow officiers to brandish weapons in situations where it may not be appropriate to actually discharge them.

The officier may not have felt the need to pull a gun out at the man who has been subdued but remember the officiers still have a mob to contend with. There was alot of noise at the scene and a good deal of it was not coming from the officiers.

I believe that if the shot had been fired while there were only a few people there it would have been an open and shut case of mishandling a firearm, however we can't forget that the officiers at the scene were dealing with a mob, this complicates matters greatly.

[Micki]

Don't guns have safety switch any more?

Mefistofeles, does the article suggest it was an accident or just your wishful thinking?
And what mob? I certainly don't see any rioting or anything that would justify a panic reaction. In fact there is a policeman just standing there relaxed keeping an eye on people and he doesn't look like he is expecting any violence etc.

Noone besides me think that tasing, shooting and beating up has become part of standard modus-operandi?

San Francisco's KTVU aired a second video clip from an anonymous witness. In it, Grant is clearly pinned by two officers and completely immobile. Then, without provocation, the officer at Grant's waist draws his weapon and fires.

After the gunshot, as the audio track dissolves into indiscernible shouting and commotion, an enraged onlooker hurls an object at the police. Vargas retreats to her train and peeks the camera at the officers again.

"They just shot him! They just shot him!" she yells. "... I got you, mothaf--kers!"

[smallpoxgirl]

In all fairness to the officiers we don't know how the weapon was discharged, although at this point I strongly suspect it was probably an accident.

That was my first thought too. This video: link could very easily have ended the same way. The sad reality is that cops absolutely SUCK at safe gun handling. One of the physiologic reactions to adrenaline is that it heightens your grip reflex. If you have allowed yourself to develop a habit of putting your finger on the trigger when you shouldn't, the heightened reflex can easily result in a negligent discharge. Bad habits plus stressful situations is a recipe for tragedy.

I'm not trying to absolve the cop by any means. There's a reason it's called a "negligent discharge". Dude absolutely should be getting out his checkbook, writing a big fat check, finding a new line of work, and maybe even doing some jail time for criminal negligence. It's possible that he just decided to cap an unarmed kid in the back for no apparent reason in front of a dozen witnesses and a video camera. It certainly should be investigated, but it seems pretty unlikely to me. Oakland isn't Gaza. More likely he was sloppy and irresponsible and made the mother of all screw ups.

The Las Vegas cop in the video, BTW, turned in her badge and quit the force immediately after that incident.

[Micki]

So you are saying US cop guns do not have a safety switch?
If there is one, there is absolutely no reason to unsecure the gun unless there is imminent danger.
If he unsecured his gun in that situation, he should be sent off to handle traffic tickets (or if not an accident, to jail).

[Dreamtwister]

And still the revolution does not come.

[wisconsin_cur]

I think that cop is on his way to prison, as he should be.

An explanation of the possible motor response of the cop

Relevant to this is the motor principle that keeping movement patterns as close as possible to already well-learned patterns enhances learning and speed. This is one of the reasons it is often considered a great idea to carry an off-duty weapon as close as possible to where you carry your on-duty weapon. Great idea so far, since the "cues" that will cause you to initiate the motor skill of drawing a handgun will be the same on- and off-duty.

But the TASER is a different animal. It is used in less lethal situations, which will look like a much different set of "cues" to our senses. The position and training of that instrument must be done in a completely different manner than our handguns! One of the many problems we have to deal with is that our program or schema for drawing a handgun is or should be learned to an automatic level. It is done automatically whenever the proper cues, stimuli or threats are present.

Once something is learned to that level after thousands of repetitions, it is difficult to change and damn near impossible to quickly forget. As stress gets greater and greater motor programs get run exactly as trained and this implies we need to practice drawing both firearms and TASERs from non-traditional positions, but ones we certainly might end up in during a confrontation. Just look at the video of the BART shooting and the stress the officers are exhibiting (it is obviously a high-liability, ambiguous crowd situation) and the awkward position of the officer who fires his handgun.

The TASER feels and draws like a handgun, but it is completely different. It should be placed completely away from our firearm and a new schema should be trained into our memory for its use. The proper cues should be practiced for when to use it, how to tell if it is working (knowledge of results) and how to retain it in a conflict. We need to make sure we do sufficient repetitions for all our tools and for more insight into motor learning issues check out Motor Learning and Performance 2nd ed. by Richard Schmidt. (See more information about Dr. Schmidt's research below)

[Arsenal]

Accidental discharge!!! Gimme a freakin break. As a TRAINED professional there should be no ADs anywhere. Most AD's happen when you remove the gun from the holster up to the target NOT when you are already sighted on the target. At that point it was an intentional shot.

On a side note. Thank god we have camera phones, camcorders, and any other device that records video in the hands of citizens. Can you imagine how this would have been swept under the rug if there was no video? Happens all the time. Police shootings.. 21 rounds in one unarmed suspect, Swat raiding the wrong house and shooting people, and now a cuffed suspect shot in the back. This guy should go to jail. If it was one of us would you expect any different outcome? We would be in jail in at most 3 months.

[wisconsin_cur]

Accidental discharge!!! Gimme a freakin break.

edit: sorry, I see it now.

[bratticus]

Not to worry, it's all normal now. Normal, normal normal!

BART service normal after violent protest

... All BART stations are open and train service is running normally this morning ...