What the heck is going on in SF/Oakland?

[seaboy4hire]

http://www.prisonplanet.com/bart-cop-shooting-protests-escalate-turn-violent.html

 

Does not look pleasent. Is it really as bad as the media is saying?

 

Hugs,

Greg

http://seaboy4hire.tripod.com

seaboy4hire@yahoo.com

Your low rent escort http://www.daddysreviews.com/newest.php?who=greg_seattle

http://www.rockbox.org/mail/archive/rockbox-archive-2008-07/att-0126/Sheeple.gif

[+ glutes]

So far a local story, but the shooting by a cop of a unarmed kid lying face down on the ground is an outrage. Plenty of cell phone video of it if you look on youtube or local SF stations. KPIX & KGO are best.

[Trixie]

An outrage indeed! But the mini-riot that's been on tv nationally was short and not nearly as outrageous as the media portrayed. Last night (the night after the protests) all the news

channels had helicopters floating over downtown, just hoping it would happen again! It's going to be interesting to see how this case is handled. The video is pretty shocking.

 

 

Trix

[Guest]

The shooting was outrageous enough (handcuffed guy lying face down on the ground)--but at least that was just one person. It has been the reaction of BART after the incident which has been even more shocking, because it is more calculated. They illegally confiscated cell phone videos, so they knew exactly what happened. Yet they first said that the gun was probably still in the holster when it was fired. Then they said that the officer didn't know whether he fired it accidentally or intentionally. Then they said the officer didn't know if was holding a gun or a taser in his hand. Plus some other doozies like the officer probably didn't shoot the victim Oscar Grant until after he'd been shot dead (SOP, you know).

What also boggles my mind is that the (former, now resigned) officer who killed Mr. Grant, Johannes Mehserle, is still a free man! No probable cause to arrest Mr. Mehserle? There's another whopper for you. Quite frankly, I'm surprised by the community's restraint (although they did destroy an Oakland PD car--unclear why since they have nothing to do with the BART PD).

[Guest]

>Plus some other doozies

>like the officer probably didn't shoot the victim Oscar Grant

>until after he'd been shot dead (SOP, you know).

 

 

Oops! I should have proof-read. I meant to write that they said that they probably didn't handcuff Mr. Grant until after he'd been shot dead.

[Guest]

Another series of "great lies":

As to BART's own closed-circuit security cameras, BART officials initially claimed that the Fruitvale platform cameras "could not record".[19] Subsequently BART spokesperson Linton Johnson said the platform cameras had recorded some of the incident, but did not include the actual shooting,[19] and Johnson described the surveillance footage as "benign".[citation needed] BART's video remains unreleased.

[Guest zipperzone]

>and Johnson described the surveillance footage

>as "benign".[citation needed] BART's video remains

>unreleased.[/i]

 

By the time it is released it will probably resemble Nixon's Watergate tapes.

[+ glutes]

Cop charged with murder!

 

Don't think this will affect another protest in Oakland today...

 

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/13/BAM615A08A.DTL&tsp=1

[Guest Ca Robert]

RE: Cop charged with murder!

 

The protests were significant to shut down a few stations in Oakland and SF recently.

 

For those outside of the metropolitan bay area, I can let you know, BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) police are really, really ineffective and complaints have gone on for years with no results. Several BART stations have had really violent crime (one in El Cerrito had a disabled women violently raped) and its hard to get the BART police to respond. Oftentimes I've been on trains where a crazy or drug addicted passenger was harassing passengers, and the response was to "move to another car".

 

BART has its own police department, and resents when passengers use their cell phones to contact local police departments. This happens because patrons don't trust that BART will actually respond.

 

Once, between stations, a shot rang out and blew out the window near where I was sitting. I contacted the conductor, who was rude and threatened to have me arrested if I didn't get off the platform. I then contacted the local (Richmond) police, who did, indeed, take it seriously and scroued the area looking for juvenilles with guns.

[Guest]

RE: Cop charged with murder!

 

BART employees in general are the most over-paid ineffectual fucks you'll ever encounter. Politicians and the public are so terrified of them when they strike because the Bay Area economy gets paralyzed. I'm no big fan of Ronnie Reagan's, but I wish Schwartzenegger would pull a traffic controler union-like action on them and fire every one of them. The BART unions have the Bay Area so petrified that they get paid ridiculous sums for lousy work. And, of course, they get to ride BART for free while the public pays among the highest fares in the world. I will climb any mountain, ford any stream, cough up any bridge toll to avoid riding BART.

[+ glutes]

Update for seaboy

 

So 15 months later, 3 BART cops are gone, 1 of them charged with murder. If he is found NG this summer, Oaktown will explode.

 

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/04/23/BAV11D2RVE.DTL

 

BTW Brother Unicorn, MUNI is a close 2nd to BART when come to overpaid fucks. Hell, Muniserable has killed two people in the last two days.

[+ glutes]

Oscar Grant = Rodney King?

 

Better get ready boys and girls, Oakland (a 'huge and diverse city') is about to rock!

 

Former BART police officer Johannes Mehserle may manage to convince several members of the jury of his peers that he really meant to Tase Oscar Grant when he instead shot him dead on Jan. 1. But, with the defense today resting in Mehserle's high-profile trial, the youthful cop hasn't managed to convince several high-ranking members of his own profession contacted by SF Weekly.

 

"My personal opinion is, [Mehserle's story] is pretty hard to believe," said former San Francisco police chief and mayor Frank Jordan. "I don't see myself ever pulling out a handgun when I wanted to use a Taser. The handgun is absolute last resort. The Taser is supposed to minimize the situation so you don't kill somebody. It's an interesting alibi and I'm not sure it's one I buy into."

 

http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2010/06/former_sf_police_chief_frank_j.php

[Guest]

Yes, the "Taser defense" came up long after the shooting. He never mentioned to his superiors (or to his friends or family or anyone else) that he thought he made that mistake, until it was clear he was being brought to trial. Yet he may be able to instill enough reasonable doubt to get away with a manslaughter conviction. It's interesting that BART PD's attempt at a cover-up (denying the presence of station cameras, attempting to confiscate cell phones, etc.) hasn't been mentioned during the trial, although it seems quite relevant to this case. Of course, Oscar Grant was not exactly a great boon to society himself...

[MsGuy]

2 cell phone recordings of the shooting:

 

starts about 55 second mark

 

no knowledge of who is doing the voice over

[+ glutes]

Involuntary manslaughter? Possibility of parole?

 

(Reuters) - A white former transit police officer was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter on Thursday in the videotaped shooting death of an unarmed black man that triggered riots in Oakland, California last year.

 

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger joined civic leaders in Oakland and elsewhere in appealing for public restraint as police braced for the possibility of renewed violence sparked by the Los Angeles jury's verdict.

 

The panel of four men and eight women deliberated for about six hours over two days before reaching their decision, which indicated they essentially believed defense arguments that the shooting was a tragic accident rather than the intentional act of a rogue cop.

[Guest]

I don't think it was premeditated murder, but I don't believe for a second the cop thought he was holding a taser. It should have been voluntary manslaughter. Quite disappointing that the jury had no black members. Does the judge have the authority to insist that at least one juror be of a certain race before a trial begins?

[Toulouse]

Involuntary...WTF?

 

Involuntary manslaughter? Is that so? If the gun had been in the black man's hand, we'd be looking at Murder One. This is not justice; the judge should be able to set aside this verdict because it is unreasonable and unjust--unfortunately, the judge can only set aside the verdict to find the defendant not guilty. With all our wealth and opportunity, justice often seems a haphazard, femme fatale that hypnotizes with the rhetoric of "protection for ALL." No words can bring back Oscar Grant and I can only imagine how his family and friends are suffering.

So sad.

[CowboyUp]

There, of course, are always two sides to a story, but neither side comes out with a rational reason for this man being shot. If this young officer was under-trained with a taser, then he should not have been using it. And, the main question in everyone's mind is, "Did he shoot because he was black?" What happened to hand cuffs? Shooting a man face down on the ground, is not an appropriate use of a taser. There are just too many questions for this decision to be justice.

[JackTwist]

Johannes Mehserle will find his real judge/jury and justice in prison.

[+ glutes]

If anyone has been following the latest (2nd) BART Police fatal shooting, there is plenty going on here. Avoid the transit system and downtown SF on Mondays when the protests fall.

 

BART has shut-off cell coverage to thwart the protests, protesters wearing Guy Fawkes masks, and the group Anonymous releasing photos of BART spokesman Linton Johnson showing his johnson online... NSFW http://bartlulz.weebly.com/