- See also : OAKLAND ERUPTS, Now We Can Document Failure!, January 8, 2008.
Athens… Melbourne… San Francisco…
‘A Directory of Wonderful Things’.
“Citizen videos” spread online showing BART police officer shooting unarmed man to death
Posted by Xeni Jardin, January 6, 2009 11:05 PM | permalink
(Warning, explicit content: the video below shows a man being shot to death).
“In the early hours of New Year’s Day, 27-year-old BART police officer Johannes Mehserle shot and killed 22-year old Oscar Grant. A number of people who were riding the BART train that night witnessed the shooting, and shot video or photos on handheld cameras or phones. The victim’s family today filed a lawsuit for $25 million. Five days after the shooting, the accused officer still has not given a statement. He is said to be have received death threats and authorities are apparently moving him from place to place to protect him from harm…”
Amnesty International USA Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2009
Amnesty International Calls Oscar Grant Shooting a “Clear Cut Abuse of Power”Contact: Wende Gozan at 212-633-4247 or Dalia Hashad at 202-675-8571
(Washington)–Oscar Grant, a 22-year old unarmed black man, was shot in the back by a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) police officer on New Year’s Day. On the day of his funeral, Dalia Hashad, director of Amnesty International USA’s identity-based discrimination program, released the following statement:
“When an unarmed man is shot in the back after police put him face down on the ground, it is the time for authorities to demand action, not patience. Days after the incident, the officer still has not been interviewed. The delay in this critical part of the investigation hints at the callousness to the worth of human life to a public that is all too familiar with racial profiling, police brutality and cover-ups. Whatever the final investigation reveals, the bottom line is that there is never justification to shoot an unarmed person, especially one who is restrained. It is an obvious violation of the most basic human rights standards, and a clear cut abuse of power.”
What can one say? It’s a monstrous abuse of power to commit a crime like this and it reflects very badly on police recruitment and training procedures for an officer (employed to serve the public good) to do such a thing. Witnesses armed with video camera technologies (including the humble mobile phone) are crucial to raising public awareness of such crimes and holding the perpetrators to account.
“Witnesses armed with video camera technologies (including the humble mobile phone) are crucial to raising public awareness of such crimes and holding the perpetrators to account.”
Citizens ARMED! are needed to stop such crimes from happening in the first place!