EDIT: You have now just witnessed a murder. Accidental discharge, You cant accidentally discharge a weapon. You put your hand on it, you pulled the trigger, you own that baby.

Fucking executed him.

GODAMN FUCKING EXECUTED HIM.

I cant even formulate a complete thought... in my head. every time I see this ...

For any of you who say this was an accident you have to consciously make the decision to ignore the evidence of what you just witnessed.

Accident or not it was murder. Ignorance is no excuse.
Criminally indefensible.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/01/BAB9152I2Q.DTL


Ill quote this bullshit.

"The question was whether the persons civil rights have been violated"

HES FUCKING DEAD, goddammit his rights have been massively violated.


NOTE: This is not snuff, its news, and therefore does not violate the rules.

*promote this shit better make it to the top like the tazer video I posted.

People need to see this.

Promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Monday, January 5th, 2009 7:32pm PST - promote requested by NordlichReiter.

This country is full of lazy assholes. The kind of people that allow planes to be hijacked. I don't care if they are cops, I mean they have to follow laws. I don't understand how people didn't make a scene after watching a murder.

>> ^joedirt:
This country is full of lazy assholes. The kind of people that allow planes to be hijacked. I don't care if they are cops, I mean they have to follow laws. I don't understand how people didn't make a scene after watching a murder.


Um, because you're talking about a bunch of armed cops. And you've just seen one unjustly shoot someone, so you aren't entirely sure of the mental state of them?

Really, what would have happened if there was some mass scene? Probably more killed. If you work on the idea that citizens should all be armed as well, then you would have just ended up with a lot more shot on both sides. If you work on the idea that citizens shouldn't be at a train station with guns then you have them not really wanting to do anything that may make the cops shoot more people.

Surely it's a lot more sensible to take your footage/eye witness of the incident and tell as many people as possible once you're out of danger?

That's terrible. I'm not taking BART anymore. That kid probably thought they were gonna call his mom and he ends up getting executed.

They have been playing this on KTVU quite a bit and this morning they were saying they think the cop got his taser mixed up with his pistol. The taser is holstered on the left side of his hip though.

Well... I was a police officer long ago, I don't see any cause why that officer should have drawn his weapon, if anything he screwed up by not helping out with the physical take down. However, I watched this a few times and did notice something. Watch his left hand just as the shot is fired (the other vid has the sound of the shot), this looks like an accidental discharge.

The reason I say this is because of his left hand. His left hand looks like he was chambering the pistol which never should happen (there should always already be a round in the chamber), Semi autos should always be preloaded and you NEVER single action a double action revolver (I doubt he had a revolver). They say he is a 2 year vet of the force, but looks pure rookie to me. Also... sad but, if it was accidental, there will be pressures to not admit it, they rather fight it as a justifiable shooting, I will not explain the reasons for that as its too sad.

Total FUBAR

Looking it again, I am even more convinced the idiot was pulling back his slide, must have been a semi auto. Doing so makes no sense at all. His stupid finger was on the trigger and when the slide came forward it discharged. That's my 2 cents based on a really grainy vid.

One more thing, when you shoot, you shoot to kill. He holstered his weapon immediately, normally you would continue to cover the subject.

Had to be Accidental Discharge OR a targeted assassination (which wouldn't happen in public, wouldn't be just one shot and would not be done by a rookie)

Most police officers are good and competent people, but 20 percent or less aren't. They hold so much power and have such room for abuse with limited accountability that a few bad ones can really create enormous sickness.

I'm betting the truth will never come out, everyone will cry out murder and the dept will not admit accidental shooting unless they don't have a foot to stand on. They will come up with something to justify the shooting. That cop will be under a lot of pressure not to admit accidental discharge and certain opposing groups will be more eager to pursue this as a matter of police abuse rather than police total ineptitude.

I can be totally wrong of course.

Any cop who shoots someone after mixing up the contents of his Batman belt should go directly to jail.

There are no accidental discharges.

The trigger must be pulled for the weapon to go off.

>> ^dcmisha:
Well... I was a police officer long ago, I don't see any cause why that officer should have drawn his weapon, if anything he screwed up by not helping out with the physical take down. However, I watched this a few times and did notice something. Watch just as the shot is fired, this looks like an accidental discharge.

But like you say, if it was accidental the repercussions will be a lot worse.

They will have to prove that he was in a certain state of mind, in order to get off with manslaughter. From what we can see in this video, the victims can take him down for homicide or murder two.

I foresee this officer getting off with, a slap on the wrist Criminally speaking. But he will have to pay in that 25 million suit in the wrongful death suit.

The video alone is preponderance of evidence.

http://www.mercurynews.com/alamedacounty/ci_11387608
"He said that if Mehserle deliberately shot Grant with a gun, the officer should be prosecuted for second-degree murder."

There are no accidents only action and inaction, when it comes to life and death there is only black and white. Dead, and alive. There are no second chances.

I cant say enough how unhappy this video makes me. If I was a lawyer championing for the family I would see this officer behind bars. They people will not stand for this.

When I get pulled over by a cop I shouldn't have to worry that he or she might shoot me or something worse, like prison.

But in this day and age, you cant be sure.

Of course there are accidental discharges. Yes almost always the trigger must be pulled (though there have been cases where it wasn't). Accidental refers to the intent to discharge the weapon.

Out on the range a friend of mine who didn't know what he was doing pulled the trigger while a man was down the line. What do you call that? Is that an accidental discharge? Are we talking semantics? What would you call it then? A unintentional near miss?

And criminally speaking, intent matters. That is not to say that a lack of intent will get you off or make something excusable, it doesn't. Intent can make the difference between bars and a needle.

>> ^dcmisha:
Of course there are accidental discharges. Yes almost always the trigger must be pulled (though there have been cases where it wasn't). Accidental refers to the intent to discharge the weapon.
Out on the range a friend of mine who didn't know what he was doing pulled the trigger while a man was down the line. What do you call that? Is that an accidental discharge? Are we talking semantics? What would you call it then? A unintentional near miss?


You finger that trigger, that is intent to maim and possibly murder. Draw that weapon and you better be prepared for the consequences.


Ignorance is no excuse.

lagged caused double post

Ok I see where you are going with this. Yeah I get it now. I agree. Pulling your weapon is a choice. With all the training that should have occurred, it should have been very evident to the officer the possible consequences of drawing his weapon. I get it, your talking about the intent of drawing his weapon.

Officer Johannes Mehserle -- The 27 year-old, two year veteran of the BART police force... shot a killed a restrained suspect in the back, lying on the ground

Tags for this video have been changed from 'BART, Police, shooting, Oakland, Oscar, Grant, NYE, KTVU' to 'BART, Police, shooting, Oakland, Oscar, Grant, NYE, KTVU, Johannes, Mehserle' - edited by joedirt

>> ^dcmisha:
Ok I see where you are going with this. Yeah I get it now. I agree. Pulling your weapon is a choice. With all the training that should have occurred, it should have been very evident to the officer the possible consequences of drawing his weapon. I get it, your talking about the intent of drawing his weapon.



That's what I meant, I sometimes make a simple thought hard to understand.

@ dcmisha

I totally agree after looking at the video, he clearly brought his left hand in, which is also a shooting stance, but he does appear to jerk the slide. THe problem is the sound is probably not very well sync'd.

The only possible explanation is that he owns some personal gun he goes to the shooting range with and is all gangster with. I can't imagine on the job he ever EVER did anything involving this kind of slide cocking a semi-automatic. I don't understand why you would need to chamber a round??!! was his life threatened? So even if it was accidental discharge, he still took out his gun and then tried to make sure it was loaded. And then he did holster it right away which is even more a sign of guilt.

What I want to know... Why didn't any of the other cops arrest this Mehserle? I would have. Definately taken his gun away from the moron. Why won't a single cop be a decent human being and arrest a murderer, even if it was accidental.

.

One other possibility for the movement of the left hand would be improper placement and having the gun pinch the hand on firing. I have had that happen before, and I don't see that causing the hand to come directly back like that. Would like to hear from others who shoot a lot and know about the pinching.

Another example of an accidental discharge is out there with some officer in a school talking to students. In that case the slide was in the open safe position, he released the slide and appears to have been putting it back in the open position when he had an accidental discharge.

It appears that the officer has been forced to resign from the force. The police decided that the shooting was too much to bear -- that the shooting was indefensible -- so they're not going to protect him.

If you ask me, it appears that the camera phones really worked in this case.

Trancecoach, the footage on your article link is from an angle I have not seen before, and it's a lot clearer too (you can make out a lot more and noticed some new things). Looks like lots of people were filming this. I think from now on I am not going anywhere without at least a camera.

This is the best raw footage of the incident that I've seen, even though the actually shooting is blocked by an officer standing in front of him..

Thank you Trancecoach, that is def the best up close vid. I posted an update on with a few more thoughts on the other vid they have here on videosift, I will just put the section I added here:

last and final update: I saw some other vids from other angles, one of them had a pretty clear pic. I don't think he was chambering, I now believe that he did not properly handle his firearm. He probably has a nice little welt on the thumb of his left hand. he seemed to be a bit flustered, he tried unholstering from a sitting position which can be tricky - police holsters are designed so that they only come out at a certain angle so that someone from behind you can not take your firearm out in a grapple. I tried thinking of a scenario where I would pull my weapon in this scenario: The only thing I can think of is that during a pat down... if something was felt to be a possible weapon (we would have called out "possible signal zero"), at which point I might have drawn and covered till the search was complete. The other officers though, didn't seem very alarmed and were taken by total surprise by the shot.

I just can't see this being anything other than an accident (and total incompetence). Hopefully they tested his blood for possible intoxication and also checked his left hand.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

This post is linked today from here: http://policemag.com/channels/swat/2009/01/07/tragedy-at-fruitvale-station.aspx

So it's probably being read by quite a few police officers.


The article gives a very pro-police slant to this - with the headline "In the blink of an eye, the life of a San Francisco area transit officer was changed forever. "

To which I can only reply - what about the victim's life?

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

*promote

Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Tuesday, January 6th, 2009 3:39pm PST - promote requested by dag.

The 'SWAT' article uses the same sort of twisted reporting on this that the news articles use in regards to it, but in reverse.

The news articles are all about how hugely innocent the victim was, neglecting to mention what crimes he had committed in the past, and exactly what he had been doing that night with the others. Focusing purely on the fact he has a young daughter etc.

The SWAT article tries to make it sound like it was almost a riot down there (none of the videos show this), try to make it seem like the police were in imminent danger of death (none of the videos show this), mention some firearms being taken from other people, no mention of whether that is in any way related to this man, and then go on about the officer's just born child.

Stop with the one sided bullcrap reporting from both sides people.

What we have here is a victim who is not a saint, who has committed crimes, may well have been involved in fighting on the night in question (I don't know because the reports don't tell the story properly), but at the point he was shot was in no position to cause the officers harm.

We also have an officer who may well have become flustered and overwrought and made a serious mistake, OR maybe it's an officer with a seriously short fuse. Everyone is purely surmising at present because we haven't heard his side at all.

While we can be demanding to know all the facts, I think none of us, other than those who were there, know, really, enough to know just what happened... so calm down a tad and stop with the emotive writing.

I think it's worse than Rodney King. Shorter, but worse.

A few comments. He did not resign to help out BART. He resigned to avoid EVER speaking to a review board or ever testifying to what happened except at a civil hearing. I doubt he will ever be charged criminally as it could have been on the job accident.

He is a scumball for quitting just to cover up any evidence of his wrongdoing. I want to know if Mehserle was ever issued a taser. Doubtful considering the number of months in use at BART, I wonder if he recently did training for Tasers though. Yes, Taser Intl is evil for promoting usage by cops for compliance not life threatening situations.

Also, spoco, you got some nerve trying to drag the dead guys name into the mud. It doesn't matter if he was a saint or an ex-con. Police Officers should do their jobs and treat people properly based on the situation.

It doesn't make it right to shoot someone (on purpose or accidentally) or even attempt to use lethal force (point a gun at suspect) in this situation. The only possible justification that will come out of this was Mehserle thought he patted down a weapon.

It is still manslaughter for such gross negligence in this video. The dead man did have a child and the coverup and lack of response by the BART police is relevant.

Here's the Washington Post's coverage of the incident (and the youtube reverberations).

Oh, and by the way.. Here's ANOTHER shooting, which took place in Texas last week.

Could this be an Obama backlash? Racial tensions coming out on the police force? If this keeps up, people are going to beg for the nightstick like Rodney King got. At least King survived!

In the future, suspects are gonna say, "Just tase me, bro!"

Oh, and to the cops that wrote the policemag article...

The BART police did not remove the mortally wounded man immediately, they did not administer first aid. He did not die at the hospital. I understand needed to get control of the situation (they now created), but SOMEONE could have gotten him immediate help instead of waiting so long.

Cops don't understand, people can understand possibly an accidental discharge. They can no longer tolerate the bullshit coverups and cops who never see justice. The BART spokesman lies to the public. The police never come forward with details. The only evidence had to be released by cameras that happened to have not been confiscated. The videos contradict the official story.

Why won't this guy be treated like any citizen? Why was he not arrested? Why will he not be criminally charged?

edit - tragedy

*controversy

Adding video to channels (Controversy) - requested by kronosposeidon.

as long as it wasnt a taser right? case in point