It takes me a second or so on my ancient Beretta, but I’m not very good. I’d begrudge that second if I was shooting at someone who I thought was going to shoot me. 
Or you pull the trigger, mutter expletives, and then spend three seconds fiddling with it, all the while whatever you’re shooting at isn’t going to stop. See my post on the second page, police depts. want the simplest design possible, so that the action of drawing and firing your pistol is automatic and doesn’t require a lot of thought. I don’t have any experience with Glocks, but most DAO pistols require much more force on the trigger to fire, but it’s always a consistent amount (I think they’re actually a little different than DAO though).
No, if you need to draw a weapon it should be 100% ready to fire. If the weapon is pulled going into a potentially dangerous situation than the “safety” is the training to hold the finger against the gun and not on the trigger.
IMO, tasers should not resemble guns in any way, should be brightly colored to avoid confusion and involve training that is distinctly different from fire arm use.
Finally, someone gets to the crux of the issue. Given that Grant was pretty much subdued when he was shot, why was the officer drawing any kind of device or weapon?
It’s a valid point but I’m not sure it’s relevant to the trial. It comes down to intent. Maybe it adds to the level of negligence andmay be considered during sentencing. Don’t know.
First, i’m not sure why it shouldn’t be at least partly relevant. If there was no reason for him to pull any sort of weapon, doesn’t that increase his culpability for what happened when his did draw the weapon. He definitely intended to draw a weapon, even if the weapon he thought he was drawing was his taser. If he hadn’t drawn a weapon at all, then the killing—accidental or otherwise—never would have happened.
But even if you’re right about relevance, that’s why i’ve been arguing all along in this thread that, even if the trial verdict was an appropriate reflection of the law as currently written, the law itself needs to allow greater scope for punishment in cases like this, especially where peace officers demonstrate such extreme negligence in carrying out their duties.
If we’re going to allow gross incompetence or poor training or inadequate preparation to mitigate such actions by cops, we leave ourselves open to more incidents of this type. Lots of jurisdictions have harsher penalties for people who kill law enforcement officers in the commission of a crime, even if the killing itself is accidental, and i think laws like that are a good thing. I think we should also hold those officers up to a similarly high standard when they kill someone due to their own incompetence.
If the cop had been involved in a gun battle with an armed suspect, and had accidentally killed someone with a stray round, that’s a completely different thing. But this cop stood over a prone and subdued person, drew his gun, aimed it at the guy from a distance of two feet, and hit the guy he was aiming at. That’s a very different kind of “accident,” in my opinion. Even if he thought he was holding his taser, he should spend considerable time in prison.
Anyway, whatever sentence Mehserle ends up with, there’s a decent chance that a considerable burden of this incident will fall on the shoulders of Bay Area taxpayers and transit riders. Grant’s family is suing BART for $25 million. BART is already in a financial hole, and if it loses the civil judgment, guess who’s going to get hit up for the cash?
This is a fucking travesty. Justice in this country is a joke, just a big goddamn stupid joke. I know this isn’t really a GD worthy post but what the hell can you really say? It’s heartbreaking, it’s fucking heartbreaking. Caught on video putting a bullet in a helpless man’s back and this is all the son of a bitch gets. Fuck me.
While it did resemble a gun, Mehserle’s x-26 taser apparently was at least partially bright yellow. His sidearm was a Sig-Sauer p226 which weighed ~3x the taser fully loaded.
I agree with what you’re saying but there has been a push in recent history to codify sentencing in an attempt to make justice blind.
It seems less gun-like than others I’ve looked at but you’ll note I included training as part of the mix. I would say it’s the most important part. If he intended to taser the person then it’s an autonomic function to unholster, point and squeeze. There is no direct thought process in the physical action. It’s like thinking about walking.
Going back to my earlier example of the person who was shot thirty(?) some odd times. The training the police officers had at the shooting range was to shoot at a target until the gun was empty. Of course, if the training is to group 3 shots and reacquire and there are 3 officers then that’s 9 shots fired. Training has to start somewhere and should always evolve as new situations come up.
That a life has been unecessarily snuffed out and the offending officer will get as much time as Michael Vick but not as much as OJ Simpson.
Do you want to be a BART officer? All you need is:
.
These requirements are a joke and amounts to handing high school dropouts a gun, badge, and an order to “Serve and Protect”. Police officers are poorly trained because they are (surprise, surprise!) uneducated. Even the BART Chief of Police boats of a master’s degree from the University of Phoenix. :smack: Yes, ladies and gentleman, the University of Phoenix.
You’ve never heard of a graduate of West Point or the USAFA accidently shooting a Afgahn civilians in the back of the head when they meant to reach for a taser. My hunch is that it’s because somewhere in the training of a soldier there is a class (or a maybe a group of classes) on how to differentiate a firearm and a taser. Or maybe it’s just common sense. <shrug>
No, they really aren’t.
In fact, they’re saying that, at a minimum, you need to have completed high school (or its equivalent; that’s what a GED is), PLUS 30 semester credits of college work.
You can argue that these requirements are not rigorous enough (although i’m not sure i’d agree with you), but they definitely do NOT mean that BART is full of “high school dropouts.”
As a general rule, anything that gets you a jail sentence longer than 1 year renders you illegible for any kind of police officer work. Or security work. Also typically leads to loss of right to vote and right to own a gun.
There some exceptions to the above, but that usually revolves around non-violent crime. What this officer did was, unquestionably, violent.
Then it seems the problem is not too much consideration of “intent” in the law, but being too easy on people when it comes to sentencing.
True. I wonder if they carry their taser’s cross draw or on same side as the gun. THis is why they teach to wear it cross draw… that way they’ll be less likely for “confusion”.
And this shit about poorly trained? Bullshit…
Are you kidding me? Of course the requirements to become a police officer aren’t rigorous enough. I’m wary of cops because it’s my belief that people - especially young males - who desire power over others probably shouldn’t have it; there needs to a means in which we, as a country, ask that our officers have not just “a sense of justice” but a college degree. In return, we should pay the officers much more. There’s no reason why an officer should have work part-time as a security guard or do overtime to make a living wage.
It looks that your belief is really that police officers desire to have power over other people. What’s your basis for that belief?
While I’ve known some who were quite reasonable, I’ve know some that abuse it like hell!
I find his claim spurious at best.
A Taser weighs about 7 ounces- roughly the same as an orange. A Glock 17 variant weighs about 30 ounces - slightly more than a watermelon.
Here’s an experiment you can try at home: pick up a plastic bag containing an orange, then pick up a plastic bag containing a watermelon. I think you’ll find it’s totally fucking impossible to confuse the two.
While not necessarily negating your point about the weight difference between the taser and the Glock, i would like to point out that 30 ounces is less than two pounds, and i can’t remember the last time i lifted a watermelon that was under two pounds. I know there are some relatively small varieties, but most watermelons i’ve come across in the US have weighed between 5 and 15 pounds.