Sunday, January 11, 2009

BART Police Murders Man at Fruitvale BART Station



In the early hours of January 1st, BART police shot and killed a 22 year old man, Oscar Grant, on the platform of the Fruitvale BART station in Oakland. Witnesses report that Grant was "lying on his stomach with his hands out in a non-threatening position when he was shot". Police have confirmed Grant was unarmed and have suggested the shooting was an accident. Grant lived in Hayward and leaves behind a 4-year-old daughter.

BART officials have not released the name of the officer who shot Grant. After the shooting, BART police seized several cell phones from people on the platform who said they had used the phones' cameras to record what happened. For the first two days BART officials told the mainstream media that surveillance cameras at the station do not record, but then corrected themselves Friday night saying the cameras did record but didn't show the incident.

Source: indybay.org

2 comments:

Bear said...

I have watched the video from beginning to end. If I was on a jury I would not be able to convict that officer, based on what is seen in the video, of murder in any degree. Negligence resulting in death would definetely seem appropriate unless there was other mitigating factors such as a faulty weapon.

I would agree, that the suspect was not fighting or resisting too much, but I'd also say that the officers involved were not acting inappropriately either.

I think rather than judge ANYONE in this case, is not our job. We must let the LEGAL system play this out and not try and find racisim where there may not be any. And I don't see any evidence of that on this video anywhere.

Anonymous said...

You are all stupid as hell! There might have not been racism but it sure wasnt an accident. The guy stood back as the other cop held him down and shot him. The cop holding him down might not have know that the cop was going to shoot but he aimed and fired! Simple as that!