OAKLAND

hmm the Uptown... would have to consider requisite Prince cover

i don't undestand how you could really confuse your gun with a taser, aren't they shaped completely differently? tasers don't even have triggers, I don't think.

"CNN says there have been unconfirmed reports that the officer mistook his gun for a taser, which would explain the matter-of-fact manner of the shooting."

Laughable.

shitty policing = roughing up people for no reason.
shitty human being = shooting someone execution style in a very public space for no reason. police don't do this for fun.

and if the unconfirmed reports are right, then the guy is more stupid than he is evil

and the first thing that came to my head was also wtf guns have triggers. but seriously, what the hell other explanation is there? it wasn't a situation where he needed to pull his gun anyway.

well yeah on one hand tasers and pistols are very different, but on the other hand, he sure was awful tired

1) Shitty policing is pulling out your sidearm if your two partners have already subdued a cooperating suspect.

2) Those unconfirmed reports are complete bullshit.

3) I don't give a shit if the guy is evil.

look, if there was a struggle and somebody pulled a knife or something, and the police instantly pulled out his gun and shot him, that's def shitty policing. Amadou Diallo = definitely police brutality. but that situation has twisted shitty police logic behind it. this one doesn't.

1) was he really a "cooperating" suspect? the footage I saw showed him struggling. I mean I could understand pulling out a taser at that point.

2) most unconfirmed reports are

3) cool

or, alternatively, this guy decided to kill a man for no particular reason, because that's just what police do.

I think our definitions of shitty police logic are so vastly different that they will not meet.

the whole taser thing is so fucked up, too, so that's no excuse in my book.

BART police are highly, highly undertrained. Also, they're supposed to wear their tasers in a wholly different kind of location than the sidearm.

tasers are fucked up too, I agree. I'm not looking for an excuse, obv there isn't an excuse here...I'm looking for an explanation.

But even if the dude meant to taser the guy he killed, that's STILL the wrong situation to use a taser!

ugh, sorry guys. I'm not going to watch the video, but your explanations and reactions, i think, tell me all I need to know. :(

It's been a while, but I've DJed once at the Uptown (in 2002?) while on a road trip. I've been on BART on those very stops too. (obv, a lot of bay area people here have)

A taser is supposed to be a non-lethal firearm replacement, to be used in situations where a firearm would perhaps otherwise be used. It's not supposed to be a means of neutralizing a suspect who is already under control.

the video isn't very graphic

just "shitty", right?

You have to define "under control" then. Guy didn't look under control to me anyway fwiw. Accidentally grabbing a gun while reaching for a taser is certainly nowhere near anything that could be considered an excuse for killing a guy, but I don't see what's fucked up about tasers. Obviously it's a lesser-of-two-evils thing, but wouldn't you agree that accidents involving immobilization and pain are infinitely preferable to ones involving death?

xxpost You are a weird guy.

tasers are fucked up because they're overused in places that aren't Oakland BART stations.

I'm not going to "define" under control, but let's just say that a dude on his stomach with his hands behind his back is pretty close.

Yup.

I dunno why it comes across like I'm defending the police here. Well, I mean, okay, I do know why. I have no sympathy for the BART police, Oakland PD, Berkeley PD, whoever.

I'm just of the mind that this is way too *weird* for it to be purely a normal fuck the police situation.

All instances of police brutality seem "weird" to me.

I mean do you think it's "rational" to shoot someone 40 someodd times??!

this guy must have lost his mind to have done something so stupid and crazy in front of so many people. i agree 100% with the tone of the SFBG editorial. BART PD clearly needs more oversight.

I mean do you think it's "rational" to shoot someone 40 someodd times??!

I just walked to in-n-out and was actually thinking about this particular case on the way there, trying to come up with a police-brutality-rational-thinking system.

Their reasoning in that situation:
1. Guy may or may not have a gun
2. With which he may shoot us
3. We're gonna shoot him and make sure he's dead
4. We really, really want to make sure he's dead

So Kant it ain't, but there does have to be some sort of *reasoning* behind this, some sort of explanation for why someone acted like they did. Psychological, racist, whatever.

In general the brutality rationality is more like:

1. We can be more violent than the law deems appropriate
2. We will get away with it, or will be punished lightly

and

3. This is okay because we're the good guys / they're the bad guys / we're teaching someone a lesson
or
4. This is okay because I dislike that person / enjoy inflicting violence on others

(1) he'd already been pat down.

Amadou Diallo was?

it is a weird video: the whole thing just seems so... casual. the guy is on the ground, things seem pretty calm and under control, the cops are stressed-looking or freaked out or whatever, and then he just pulls out the gun - kind of half-heartedly, he doesn't whip it out in a big hurry - let's his arm sort of hang and then shoots him. and then he seems completely out of it, like he doesn't realise what's happened.

i dunno, it just seems pretty different to other types of police-brutality footage i've seen.

The fact that he quit right before he had to explain why he killed an unarmed man in such a bizarre way makes me think that the reasons he may or may not eventually be required to give won't be all that terribly compelling.

it should be pretty obvious that even if he shot the guy by accident he should still go to jail for it, just as if i "absent-mindedly" drove onto the sidewalk and killed people while i was driving.

besides, aren't police supposed to be like extraordinarily well-trained to handle and use guns, considering that they're licensed to carry guns and use them to kill people?

and it's not like the gun just went off in his holster or something, i mean the dude pulled it out, aimed it, and fired.

BART police are highly, highly undertrained. Also, they're supposed to wear their tasers in a wholly different kind of location than the sidearm.

― ShamPowWow (libcrypt), Thursday, January 8, 2009 4:15 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

24 year old protestors from san francisco are highly, highly undertrained

i didn't realise bart police were 'real' police, either.

gah, in nz our police don't carry guns and have only recently allowed to start using tasers. a guy i went to high school with was shot and killed when he had some kind of freak-out and went on a window-bashing spree with golf club.

and speaking of dodgy cops: my boyfriend was riding to work and got some bored cop trailing him, then flashing his lights. he pulled over to the broken glass-covered shoulder and the cop drove by slowly, staring at him, then took off. and then my bf got a flat tire.

uh, that guy was shot and killed by a policeman. our cops don't carry guns on duty, but will report to a dangerous scene with them. if that makes sense.

Wow, more riots. And the cop still isn't talking. This sucks.

cop has been arrested

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2009/01/14/BAJE15A6O2.DTL&o=0

i dont know why i thought he might look different than he does

tons and tons of cops everywhere off and on broadway, roads closed... bit scary getting off the train in downtown oakland. but i may have missed some stuff, since our neighbour told my bf early that downtown was 'mad' - it was pretty barren at 6.30pm.

one of my bff's lives at 11th and mlk. he was at our house and we turned on the live news broadcast to see protesters fighting w/cops at 12th and broadway. 2 blocks from his place. luckily (?) he was driving home instead of taking bart

what time was that? 12th and broadway is where i exit bart.

is it worth asking how many of these protestors were from out of town?

anything crazy that went on at berkeley when i was there - and there was not much except for a couple of PETA protests on tolman hall, some pro-public space "take back the streets" squatter nonsense on telegraph, and some very very heated arguments about the intifada - seemed more to do with people from surrounding areas showing up to misbehave in berkeley rather than residents or students.

i think a fair amount of these protestors were from oakland. I don't know, I completely understand the protesters in this case. I don't really agree with how it's gone down but I see why it went that way and wouldn't have expected anything else. A white cop shot a restrained black man in the back on video. I'm surprised there weren't even bigger riots.

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/01/08/18559690.php

^ amazing!

The kids in Oakland know how to party. Let's show them they are not alone.

justine, it was around 9pm