Here is the video of Oscar Grant, a father of a 4 year old, being shot to death by an officer employed at the underground train in Oakland, CA - a certain Johannes Mehserle. This video may be a testament that there is still a lot of resentment about having a non-white President elected in the US. Johannes Mehserle calmly shot Oscar grant in the back who died seven hours later in the hospital.
American police are trigger happy. They dont use guns to prevent or stop crime but use it simply for the sake of it and in its "best way" that is, shoot to kill. I had some encounters with US police and based on that I would say that the majority of them think that they are godly creatures. They are mostly uneducated, arrogant and badly paid and hence the only drive for them to wake up and go to work is to show off their powers and if lucky find an excuse to shoot. The only way to protect yourself from police is to avoid dealing with them.
ReplyDeleteNo wonder many Americans were surprised when people in Greece demonstrated when reckless (many say fascist) police killed the teenage boy.
I think this one was an accident. I don't think the cop meant to shoot the guy.
ReplyDeleteI'm no weapons expert, but how can a police officer mistake a gun for a taser?
ReplyDeletehttp://tinyurl.com/8vjxtp
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Police are seen putting Grant face-down on the ground. Grant appears to struggle. One of the officers kneels on Grant as another officer stands, tugs at his gun, unholsters it and fires a shot into Grant's back.
There have been unconfirmed reports that Mehserle may have mistook his gun for a Taser, but Burris is not swayed.
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Why even to use a tazer gun? It is proved that it can cause heart attack and other health problems. If the guy made a problem they could just handcuff him and that's it. The whole thing doesnt look right.
ReplyDeleteCome on, Hayk... The cops love to use violence against the suspects especially if they have darker skin complexion. I am sure they have a lot of fun using those tasers.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, though, the people the cops deal with in this country are usually armed hence the paranoia among the police. They are trained to expect the worst when dealing with civilians (that's pretty much the same around the world) and that assumes shooting at any suspicion of danger. Tasers replace the deadly force against people who clearly are not armed but may end up hurting the cops.
This might be acceptable if there was not the issue of police arrogance and the 'let's allow them everything' mentality among the government and the society at large. If you check the local news (not CNN, etc.) you will come across police shootings of unarmed people quite often. They usually end up on paid leave (aka vacation), a review and exhonoration.
Knowing that you need to act appropriately. To me, that's avoiding ineracting with the cops at all times and not giving them any reason to use violence against me if they start interacting with me.