Remember that BART shooting back on New Years Day in 09?

[Glassunion]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BART_Police_shooting_of_Oscar_Grant

The officer was convicted and handed the lightest prison sentence he could have received for the crime. 2 years with time already served. He will be out in about seven months...
http://www.sfbg.com/2010/11/09/prison-killer-cop?page=0,0

No word yet on the Federal Investigation.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128409603&sc=fb&cc=fp

Not too often you see a police officer charged and convicted in a wrongful shooting. Usually the story ends with comments like: "We could find no wrongdoing in the actions of officer Such and Such" and "Officer Such and Such was acting within department guidelines when the shooting took place"...

I still cannot believe that you can confuse a 7oz tazer with bright yellow sides that shoots two barbs and a bit of confetti with a 34oz pistol that shoots .40 cal bullets. It's not the first time it happened. This time however the criminal charges stuck. Remember Marcie Noriega? She was the officer that shot and killed a man who was handcuffed in the back seat of her patrol car.

[Dawson Leery]

1. I never sympathise with law "enforcement" and laugh when they ask for donations.

They are in existance to protect the powerful. They are above the law and do NOT need our support. Remember Diallo.

[Glassunion]

2. I would disagree.

The actions of a few do not define the whole.

My biggest beef is the double standard. Between the people andthe police, there is not equal protection under the law.

[Flyboy_451]

3. You never sympathize...

Or offer support, only condemnation, and then wonder why there are police officers and other law enforcement officers that hold some contempt for the public? Let me guess, all cops are pigs, fascists, racists and just generally foul people who should have no interaction with the fine upstanding people of the community...

I was not present at this event and know nothing more about it than what was published in various news reports, ect. I offer no defense for the officer, nor any excuse for his actions. I don't know what happened in great detail or within his own thoughts. What i do know is that many of the people that are the first to cry foul, seldom have any real world experience with the trials that law enforcement personnel face on a daily basis.

Often the decisions we make are life and death decisions that must be made with imperfect, incomplete, or misleading information, and something less than time to ponder. On top of this, we will be judged by others who have the advantage of retrospect, additional information, and time to contemplate various actions. The decisions we make are frequently made in a split second, not over the course of minutes, hours or weeks, and we are held to the impossible standard of 100% perfection in such decisions, by those who have never had to face a situation that even compares to what we deal with nearly every day.

While you are welcome to your opinion, and certainly free to share it with others, keep in mind that our opinions are often clouded from lack of information and experience. Just because you hod a particular opinion, does not mean that it has any value, particularly if it is backed by nothing more than an emotional response to a situation with which you have no, or little experience. Personally, I don't care what you choose to say on this, or any other forum. It makes no difference to me at all. I will continue to put on my uniform each day and place myself between you and those who would seek to do you arm, and even those who would seek to limit your right to voice your opinions. I will continue to place myself in harms way, in an effort to insure your continued freedom and safety, in what ways I can.

JW

[Callisto32]

6. The problem with police.

I do NOT think that all cops are pigs, racists, et cetera. Most of the experiences I have had with the police have been professional and courteous. However, I had one experience with a police officer, reposted here with slight editing:

My step-brother was a hellion and the officer came to the house, wanting to talk to him about some kind of vandalism that had occurred. When I told him he wasn't around, and no he couldn't come in to check (I may have been 13 but I wasn't stupid) he decided that it would be a great idea to kick our aluminum screen door so hard that it would break the sheet metal out from the frame and send a jagged piece of metal pointing into the entry door behind it.

My step-father was home, but asleep as he worked the night shift, and the impact woke him up and he came down stairs yelling something about trespassing and needing a warrant. The trooper cursed something under his breath and left.


We called the barracks directly and told them about what had happened. Two "officer" level troopers came out and took my (apparently worthless) 13 year old statement, and the statement of my step-father about what had happened. They asked him what happened, and he denied the happening, and (because the word of the police is just worth more, apparently) we were told that our story, and the dent in the door that matched the shape of the boot of the PA state troopers, didn't really matter, because he said it didn't happen.

A few years later, we were talking with an uncle of mine, and started to tell the story. He interrupted, "insert cop's name here? Yeah, I had a run in with him on a traffic stop. He was completely unprofessional, and didn't treat me with respect until he saw my gov't papers. The uncle was/is a high-up admin at a federal penitentiary. He also complained, and nothing occurred, because (again) the cop said it didn't happen.


This left me with a bad taste in my mouth regarding police officers. It isn't that I think they are all evil, but I recognize that we have the opposite problem where society grants them the status of seemingly superior people by virtue of their office. Since I don't know which ones will be pricks, I try to avoid them all.

[PavePusher]

7. The irony is that the same policy can be applied towards any group...

"I met one insane/idiot liberal, so I just try to avoid them all."

Hmmmm.....

[Callisto32]

8. No not the same.

The police have the ability to make your life hell in ways only a state official can.

Edit: Those other people don't have the power to harm me (with repercussion to themselves) for breaking laws that in breaking I harm no-one. Most police have been professional with me, that doesn't mean that I want to deal with them.

I am not a modern American "liberal" yet I choose to come here and interact with them, even the ones whose views I think are a little crazy. No, the police occupy a whole special place of "just try to avoid them."

[PavePusher]

9. Valid points and food for thought. Thanks! n/t

[Flyboy_451]

10. not sure if I am talking to two people or one...

as another poster pointed out, associating a trait to an entire group based on an experience with a single member of that group, or even a small number of that group is less than accurate in many cases. You had a less than pleasant experience with a law enforcement officer and it was not handled in a way that was appropriate. Would you care to guess what racial group I have very bad experiences with almost every single day? If I were to treat that group with prejudice, because of those experiences, would I somehow be wrong, while you are right(or at least justified) in our beliefs? Does the difference between a uniform and skin color change the fact that it is prejudice?

It seems to me, that by justifying your stance with an anecdotal story of a wrong committed by a law enforcement officer, you are exercising the same double standard that you claim to be objecting to. Or how about if I treated every non LEO with the same attitude that you display towards all LEOs based only on a single event? Would I then be a prick for doing the exact same thing that you are doing, while not being a prick?

What do you think would have happened if it had been your neighbor that kicked your door and you had called the cops to report it? Would they have come out and taken reports and launched a full scale investigation, resulting in anything more than a stern word for your neighbor, with no more evidence than a dent in the door and the word of a 13yo? When it is a matter of one person,s word against another, it is nearly impossible to come to any conclusion that has merit. That is not to say that they should have done nothing, but I'm not sure what action would have resulted in a resolution that would meet with your approval.

Are there guys out there that should not be wearing badges? Absolutely! Was this guy one of them? Possibly, maybe even probably. But do his actions truly carry enough weight to form an opinion of all LEO, even when you consider a lack of actions by his superiors? I dare say that that is little more than prejudice. The world is full of injustices. How we react to those injustices is what defines our character.

JW

[Callisto32]

11. My fault.

Sometimes my point gets lost in the anecdote I use to try to explain it.

While I agree that you cannot impute data from a small section of a group to the whole group, I maintain that the police are a special case. While not all police, almost certainly not most, are bad people the ENTIRE group of police is charged with what I consider to be the immoral initiation of force upon other members of society.

I know that the that guy that is growing pot, harming nobody in the process and engaging in voluntary economic interactions involving his product will suffer aggression at the hands of the state, through its agents, the police. If the police were ONLY enforcing laws where the crimes actually have VICTIMS I would not have any problem with the organization. However, there are so many laws, and so much stuff is illegal that I find it best to just avoid all interaction, since you never know if you are doing something that will get you fined/jailed.

The problem with police that I was suggesting is that unlike other groups within society, the state often does not seem so keen on correcting the wrongs done by this group. Is the cop GOING to be a jackass, probably not, but if he is and busts your door for no reason, the state has given me no reason to believe that any kind of justice will be done, because the cop's word is probably worth more than mine.

This perception of the inability to receive justice when the wrong is from the hands of the police has convinced me that I am best off just avoiding interactions with them. Essentially, my "problem with police" originates not from the individuals that make up the police, but from the societal treatment of those individuals codified in our legal system's current form. The problem is with the idea that the state's violence is somehow more legitimate than the violence of non-state entities. I reject this, and suggest that all initiation of violence is morally wrong.

[jancantor]

14. Your problem is with the legislators

including those you elect.

They make the dumb laws (like against MJ) that cops enforce. Cops didn't pass those laws. First and foremost blame the people you voted for, unless of course they are trying to repeal those laws.

[proteus_lives]

4. Why don't you go laugh in his family's faces.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4607386

[PavePusher]

5. Your brush....

it seems excessively wide.

[jazzhound]

12. I received my annual fund drive letter from our local

police officers association in the mail today.

On Monday my check will go out, as it has since '99 when I moved to this community.

That's all. :)

[jancantor]

13. Even Radley Balko, one of the fiercest police critics alive today

says the decision was correct based on the evidence. It was the reasonable decision given the evidence in the case. As for how somebody can confuse it? Simple. If you study the human reaction to high stress incidents, you realize that the drug adrenaline causes a # of things to happen, among them are diminishment of fine motor control, fine sense impression, "tunnel vision", and time distortion. Nobody who looks at the physiological response to stress disputes that.

Does that make the shooting justified? Of course not. But it explains how the error could have been made. It was a tragedy, and the sentence was not just if one is measuring justice by correlating the punishment to the result of the crime. However, when looked at from a rule of law, and analysis of process angle, it was the CORRECT verdict, under the law.

Many agencies are doing a lot to help avoid these incidents, such as requiring offhand taser holstering and drawing, actually giving training in weapon selection drill/escalate-de-escalate, etc. Ultimately, I think Taser International needs to redesign their Tasers NOT to feel at all like a gun. No other force component that a patrol officer carries could be confused with a gun. Initially, most such devices did not resemble firearms at all. Many looked more like handheld dustvacs. The trigger in some was activated with the thumb, not the finger. The change in design largely came about due to request from law enforcement who failed to foresee the potential consequences of having a less lethal weapons system that looks and feels similar to a firearm.

[Glassunion]

15. Good points...

But I have one question. Suppose I (John Q. Public) made the same mistake. I would also be given the same bare minimum sentence under the same circumstances?

Note: The average person in California, sentenced for the same crime this officer was found guilty spends 50% more time in jail. But since the experts agree, who am I to judge?