Mehserle letter: ex BART cop sorry...


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Johannes Mehserle, in a letter to the public released today, says he is sorry for the shooting that took Oscar Grant's life, wishes he could speak to Grant's family members and describes the moments after the shooting on the Fruitvale BART station platform on Jan.1, 2009.

Click on the link to read the letter.
 

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Click on the link to read the letter.

Sadm sad situation for all invovled. Don't know if you have watched the video or not, but it was apparent that he meant to tase the guy and not shoot him.... huge screw up with life changing implications for all familiaes involved.... no good outcome on this one
 
I've seen the video from more than one vantage point, and even if he meant to tase the guy, I'd award the guy hundreds of thousands in his police brutality lawsuit. There was no justification for tasing him either.

And you cannot convince me that when they are trained on safe employment of the taser vs. safe employment of the sidearm, that when he made the indefensible decision to go for his taser that he A) mistakenly want to the wrong side of his rig, B) mistook the metallic heft of his sidearm for the light weight of his plastic taser, and C) mistook the sight profile down his sidearm for the taser's sight profile. That's three incompetencies and that assumes he would have been justified in tasing a man 1) in the back, 2) who was on the ground, 3) with his hands cuffed behind his back. And that is all without the corroborated claims of obvious bias directed from the police at the man, bias which is only exacerbated by the claims of a cry of "he's got a gun!", since such a claim stemmed directly from their biases, not from the facts of the night.

It all comes down to I) they were biased, II) they chose to pick on this man who had nothing to do with the reason they were called, and III) they decided he had to die. That's 2nd degree murger at minimum, not involuntary manslaughter. Involuntary manslaughter means they bought the arguments that the suspect needed to be tased and that going to the sidearm was a legitimate, if unfortunate, mistake.
 
I've seen the video from more than one vantage point, and even if he meant to tase the guy, I'd award the guy hundreds of thousands in his police brutality lawsuit. There was no justification for tasing him either.

And you cannot convince me that when they are trained on safe employment of the taser vs. safe employment of the sidearm, that when he made the indefensible decision to go for his taser that he A) mistakenly want to the wrong side of his rig, B) mistook the metallic heft of his sidearm for the light weight of his plastic taser, and C) mistook the sight profile down his sidearm for the taser's sight profile. That's three incompetencies and that assumes he would have been justified in tasing a man 1) in the back, 2) who was on the ground, 3) with his hands cuffed behind his back. And that is all without the corroborated claims of obvious bias directed from the police at the man, bias which is only exacerbated by the claims of a cry of "he's got a gun!", since such a claim stemmed directly from their biases, not from the facts of the night.

It all comes down to I) they were biased, II) they chose to pick on this man who had nothing to do with the reason they were called, and III) they decided he had to die. That's 2nd degree murger at minimum, not involuntary manslaughter. Involuntary manslaughter means they bought the arguments that the suspect needed to be tased and that going to the sidearm was a legitimate, if unfortunate, mistake.



Cathy, I will respect your opinion in this case. However, it's easy to Monday morning quarterback these things. I am assuming you have never been on the side of the law enforcement officers, or you might look at this in a slightly different light. Having been there, I would have to disagree here.

Having said that, I don't disagree that criminal charges and a civil award are unjustified in this case. ave you read the California penal codes on this? Manslaughter was the right verdict in this case, IMHO.

As stated earlier, its a sad situation with a bad ending for all invovled.
 
Manslaughter is the chickenshit compromise verdict in this case. And yes, I have seen cases where I felt the police were in the right and the general consensus against the police was in the wrong.
 
he shot a defenseless man in the back. Anyway you look at it that act was the willful disregard for life.:fie:
 

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