Johannes Mehserle, the former BART police officer accused of shooting and killing an unarmed man New Year's Day, was arrested at 6:20 p.m. Tuesday on a murder charge in Nevada, officials confirmed. [More]About damn time...
Anybody think it would have taken this long with a non-"Only One"?
[Via J.D. Tuccille]
14 comments:
Is it poosible that an officer will be held personally accountable for their actions?
Stay tuned.
Well, the problem is a charge of murder is going to be difficult to prove. Murder charges assume a pre-existing intent to kill. What they are charging him with means they conclude that Officer Mehserle drew his weapon with forethought and malice with an intent to kill. That is to say that the officer consciously decided that he was tired of struggling with this guy and decided to murder him in from of other officers and a crowd of people.
I doubt that is going to be provable.
This isn't to say Mehserle doesn't belong behind bars for a long, long time nor am I saying that he should be charged with manslaughter, but a charge of murder almost makes me think that the DA's office is simply trying to make it look like they are doing something by charging him with something they know they can't make stick.
That's just gut feeling, though since they could be pressing for murder with hopes for plea bargaining to the lesser charges of manslaughter.
Standard disclaimer of IANAL applies.
"On Jan. 7, peaceful protests turned unruly, when a breakaway faction of demonstrators shattered storefront windows, smashed up cars and lit fires in downtown Oakland. More than 100 were arrested.
Earlier Tuesday, Mayor Ron Dellums said he understands the anger people feel, but said taking anger out on people who had nothing to do with the shooting is an injustice in its own right.
"It's fundamentally contradictory to stand up for justice and then dispense injustice," Dellums said. "You can't operate on both planes. You can't walk both sides of the street." "
That would be like imposing gun control on everyone because of what 1% do with them.
Also: Mehserle was moving from place to place because of death threats, but now that he's in custody he's under suicide watch?
On the video he appears so angry that it takes him three tries to get his pistol out of the holster. Then he aims for about two full seconds before firing directly into the torso of Oscar Grant at a disctance of about 18 inches. Will he say he "meant to scare him"?
I am an upstanding citizen. Business owner, husband, father, never arrested much less convicted of any crime worse than a speeding ticket. If a murder warrant was issued for me if they would call my lawyer so I could turn myself in or ninja kick in my door in the middle of the night? Anyone, anyone...
Associated Press reports that a train was stopped in Lisle, Ill., this afternoon "Police halted the inbound train for 90 minutes to search for a gunman but found a U.S. Secret Service agent whose question about a metal detector had raised the suspicions of a ticket agent."
No gun was SEEN, apparently, just a "suspicious question" asked. And they stopped an entire train and searched it.
I actually think he wouldn't have ever been charged if the other copscum had succeeded in their attempt to steal all the video of the murder.
Betcha the video gets quashed in the trial.
My wife read the news early today on the net and told me. My response was "I wonder how the prosecution will fuck up the trial so as to let him off?"
I suppose reasonable men will wait to see if that happens. Unfortunately reason is getting harder and harder to hang onto through all the anger and disgust.
Sit back boys and we will get to see this play out.
Here's what I find that makes this worse. The big fat pig who had his knee on the kids neck, grinding his weight on the kid. Had the kid thinking he was going to get his neck snapped. So he start begging for his life telling the pigs he had a young baby at home. So the other pig shoots him in the back killing him. This sucks so bad there's just no words how evil it was.
A point was made in this WOG postings that had me think. If there was no cell phone videos of this killing. My hunch is all the cops would have lied about what happened. Even if the lies truned out to be very weak. Boss Hoggs would have made it work with the DA's help.
Arkansas gunsmith I used to know was a retired state trooper. They had an incident (pre cell phone video days, many years back) where a unarmed kid was shot. Bunch of them dropped drop guns around the kid in the ravine after getting his prints on them (independently) over the course of the day.
Led to a meeting with the regional chief that "drop guns are ok but you need to coordinate, nobody is going to believe that that kid has 7 different cheap handguns on him!"
Reminds me of a Dallas PD shooting many years ago when an officer blew a kid's brains all over the back seat of a DPD patrol car. The conviction was murder but should have been aggravated stupidity.
"Police halted the inbound train for 90 minutes to search for a gunman but found a U.S. Secret Service agent whose question about a metal detector had raised the suspicions of a ticket agent."
May I suggest that we all start asking similar questions to desensitize the irritable? We all can pessimistically imagine the worst terrible outcomes, but it takes great wisdom and restraint to understand that unlike Chicken Little's fears, the sky is not falling. Identify and expose the Chicken Littles for what they are.
I was reading about this earlier today and had a thought about arresting police officers.
When a police officer, corrections officer, etc. gets arrested, they are often held in a secure part of the jail, such as solitary confinement, in order to keep them from being assaulted by other inmates. Naturally, this type of special confinement costs more per head than just throwing a regular prisoner in the general population.
So my thought, and it's purely speculation, is: Could the DA's office have an unwritten standard of not charging an officer as long as they stay 'available' so as to avoid the budget expenditure? Moreover, with a police officer, wouldn't they be more likely to hold off on pressing charges until they have a good solid decision on what to charge with, so as not to look foolish by later modifying the charges, something they don't normally care about with a regular citizen? Especially since most cops won't run even when they know they're likely to be charged.
I would imagine that there could be a number of instances like that, where the prosecutor wants to make sure they have a solid case before pressing charges, especially when there's any media exposure. Add in an increased cost for 'storage' of the prisoner, and it just makes sense to let someone sweat it out at home, where they're paying for their own food and lodging.
I'm probably wrong. But sometimes looking at alternate theories is good exercise for the mind.
Remember the saying: Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by ignorance and stupidity.
I view it differently. As the cops like to say "If you can't do the time, don't do the crime." I'm all for putting them in general population, just like they do with anyone else.
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