I just ran across this video (warning - violence) of a man being shot while under restraint in Oakland, CA. The victim - Oscar Grant - had been detained as part of a response to a reported fight on BART, although as I understand it he hadn’t been confirmed as being involved. Grant later died of his wounds.
I’m actually very, very outraged at this but I just don’t feel venting in the Pit would be constructive. I also feel that this is not something unusual or out-of-the-ordinary as far as the nature of the police force is concerned - they’re armed and charged with enforcing the law while for all intents and purposes they’re above it. And that makes me question the role and necessity of police in general. Don’t get me wrong - I understand police are necessary in capitalist society but I also think this kind of atrocity is part and parcel of it. You can’t have a police force that won’t contain the possibility of this happening
So I want to hear from others - how is this justifiable, in your view? I think we’ve got some current or former law enforcement officers around; is this a necessary evil of the job? Whether or not Grant was involved in the incident, how is it acceptable that the police put his life at that much risk?
I really would like this to remain in GD. I understand if you want to express outrage and (deservedly) flame the officer who pulled the trigger; I ask that you start a separate Pit thread in that case.
There seems to be no possible justification for that, and I hope there’s a full investigation, and, assuming it was the intentional shooting it appears to be, that murder charges are brought against the shooter.
Watched the video and I didn’t see anything that would justify the shooting of Mr. Grant. He was down, restrained, and looked like handcuffed, and there were other officers there. I didn’t see him move for a gun, but with the other officer in the way, I can’t tell. I will wait until we get more facts before I start calling for his head on a platter.
I’m hoping it was just some kind of horrible mistake on the part of a young police officer (based only on his reaction which, to me, seemed as surprised as anyone). Not that it will bring back Mr. Grant, of course. But we should wait until we get all the facts.
The only possible justification I can think of in a situation like this would be if the suspect had a gun and was getting ready to shoot someone. Other than that, a group of police are going to be able to handle any other situation involving a handcuffed individual that I can think of without using lethal means.
That’s where you cross the line into bigotry. Saying a police officer who breaks the law is a criminal and should be punished is fine. But saying that all police officers should be judged by the actions of one individual is prejudice. It’s no different than saying that all black people should be considered as potential criminals if one black person steals your wallet.
The attorney in the case said something I don’t understand -
I could not see from the video that Grant was handcuffed when he was shot, but that seems to be what the attorney was saying. This appears to confirm what one of the officers said -
So, he may have been prone, but at least to date it does not appear that he was handcuffed, and that is a bit of a difference.
My neighbor was shot by the police while he was prone but not handcuffed. He was trying to get the officer’s pistol away from him.
Turn your sound on. You can hear the shot and the crowd reaction at about 1:25. The cop in the background that is on top of the guy stands iup, pulls his gun, and shoots the guy in the back. The suspect was handcuffed behind his back, lying on the ground, and had two cops on top of him. There is absolutely no way that he was a threat, and you can see the surprise in the other officers. I don’t know what the officer was thinking when he shot him, but what I saw was murder. There simply is no two ways about it.
ETA: I noticed that the officer who shot him looked pretty surprised as well. It may have been an accidental discharge, which still should be prosecuted as a reckless homicide.
If your description of the event is accurate, I would also be pretty damn outraged. (I haven’t watched the video yet.)
Well, I wouldn’t say it’s not unusual – at least in America, most cops don’t shoot people at all, ever. But still, it happens too often. I would also suggest you scale back your assessment of the police’s immunity to the law; police do get convicted of crimes and punished for them. But I do think there are many police who don’t respect the law – too many.
You should remind yourself that the necessity of something need not depend on its cost. If we were to conclude that police brutality is an inevitable consequence of having a police force, it would not imply that our society could function without one.
“Police are necessary in capitalist society” is a curiously limited statement. No industrial society has ever lacked police, and no society with cities has ever lacked some kind of authority figure who was allowed to use violence to enforce the rules. That doesn’t necessarily prove that modern societies could not exist without such institutions, but it’s never been tried.
That’s true, but not very meaningful. Given enough time and enough people, every institution will kill someone. So it’s not a question of possibility but of how often. You obviously think that the police do this sort of thing too often, but does that prove that it would not be possible to create a police force that acted this way very rarely?
In my opinion, it’s not at all justifiable to shoot someone who poses no threat to you or to others.
From my experience growing up in the Bay Area, the unintentional lethal shooting of a cuffed suspect is within the continuum of expected results. Waaaay out at the far end, but still on the chart.
Tasering someone who is already restrained seems excessive to me. In any case, that would hardly be a defence to a negligent homicide charge – a police officer is supposed to know how to handle weapons properly.
The only explanation I’ve been able to come up with is an accidental discharge. One article suggested that the cop may have been going for his taser, but accidentally shot him.
To me, it seems clear the cop stands up, unholsters his pistol, lines it up (clearly with pistol in hand, not a taser), arm extended and down, and fired into the back of a suspect. He didn’t seem to be the most cooperative suspect in the world, but he’s wasn’t posing a life threatening risk. He was face down with a cops knee in his back, and another one on his legs. His hands appear to be held behind his back if not actually cuffed or tied. There are some better clips of this out there too. One of them shows that prior to being face down on the floor, he was sitting next to his buddy on the wall. The cop that shot him then grabs him, pulls him away from the wall, and forces him face down on the ground.
What I don’t understand is why the cop isn’t in jail right now. Why wasn’t he arrested on the spot? It’s been something like a week now, and the police still haven’t even questioned the cop. You or I do that, and we would have been questioned three or four times to already to make sure our story stayed straight. This man hasn’t even given a statement yet.
Just because you’re wearing a uniform when you do it, doesn’t stop it from being murder.
That’s the problem when it comes to police. Time and time again, they are happy to show us that there exists a law for them and a DIFFERENT law for the rest of us.
From the cop’s distressed reaction it looks like an accidental discharge. (He has a shocked look on his face, then covers his face with his hand, then puts his hands on his knees afterward.)
Not sure why the cop pulled the gun out in the first place, though.