Police State Killing Caught on Tape
By Anthony Gregory • Wednesday January 7, 2009 2:13 PM PDT • 6 Comments
The newest police atrocity to receive significant media coverage—-the killing of Oscar Grant at an Oakland BART station by a police officer on New Years Day—-was caught on tape and widely distributed. It has now been watched half a million times. Could this mean the beginning of a shift in the way police abuses are handled in American society?
Upon seeing the videotape, a former DEA agent and expert on “use-of-force” cases, said, “It’s clear it was not a use-of-deadly-force situation. . . . You’ve got more than enough manpower there to handle these guys.”
Many others defend the police conduct, coming up with all sorts of excuses and appealing to the high stress situations in which police find themselves. But consider when the tables are turned. When a normal member of the public mistakenly shoots a police officer, even in a much higher-stress situation, even when it is on his own property and he would normally have the legal right to shoot the intruder, he isn’t let off so easily. See the case of Cory Maye.
Accidents do happen, and police officers often commit excessively violent acts not out of malice but because of a range of factors, including stress. But certainly they are more likely to hurt the innocent and use disproportionate force due to the default legal protection they enjoy as officers of the law, the assumption that their use of violence is just and legal, and the power they have to enforce many laws that would not in a free society be laws at all. The increasing tendency of police to rely on tasers for routine crowd control is a real concern, as is the general expansion and militarization of domestic police forces. To make excesses and abuses of police state power much less likely, the power itself must be radically reduced. Most important, police should not be above the law, and should be held to the precise same standards of law and justice as is everyone else. Lots of people live in dangerous situations in this country, and the leeway given to an officer for unnecessarily killing a citizen when there are mitigating circumstances should be no greater than if the situation were reversed.
Tags: Civil Liberties, Criminal Justice, Law, Personal Liberty, Police 
I wanna argue with you but I just can’t. I agree. I hate cops! Nothing more that jack-booted thugs. Cops are bullies....with guns.
Bad Man | Jan 8, 2009 | Reply
If I don’t pay ‘protection’ money to (in part) fund the cops (and/or his superiors) salary, the cop will damage and/or steal my property, if I resist he will put me in a cage. If I fight back he will execute me. How is his actions different than that of a mafia thug?
ed42 | Jan 8, 2009 | Reply
Laws, and if you break them you will pay the cost of the fine or jail time. 10 commandments did not work. moral thoughts of right and wrong do not work, so here we are today trying to find a better way to handle it. You come up with a better method to handle order and chaos and I’ll get on with it until then it is all we have. I can sleep at night knowing that there are those who still care for the rights of others. I can sleep and if you do enter I also will try the chaos side and shut your.... I’m sure you say he had a right to break in my house while I was sleeping. Oh!
By the way I thanked the officer for the speeding ticket, he rang my bell loud and clear the life I might save is my own. You know who you were who gave me the ticket, thanks for my life and it only cost $176.00.
Art Santore | Jan 8, 2009 | Reply
I would ask two questions..was the officer carrying a taser or did he carry one in the past? Was the weapon he carried a Glock? (Although this is irrelevant since, under this circumstance, the weapon should not have been removed from its holster). It is understandable, if he were carrying a taser, to mistake his firearm for the taser . . . otherwise this officer may just be a psychotic killer.
C4 | Jan 9, 2009 | Reply
ed42 asks, “How are his actions different from that of a mafia thug?” Well, that’s why Michael Corleone told his fiance, “My father is no different from any other powerful man.” But there was a difference, in that the People did not authorize the Godfather to impose taxes on them, nor did any theory of Natural Rights (i.e., fundamental human rights) say that the Mafia must be allowed to rule.
The theory of self-government means that, to a great extent, we have the right to govern our own homes and families. But it does not allow us to govern others, except via the government (subject to the Constitutional limitations on government).
fsilber | Jan 9, 2009 | Reply
Good point. I’m going to watch the proceedings with interest to see what happens...It is a worry
PLJ | Jan 13, 2009 | Reply