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LEO training...

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cowboy67

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Joined
Dec 18, 2009
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100
Location
Opelika, Alabama, USA
Not sure if you all have been watching the news lately, but... a little over a year ago there was a police(train police) shooting in San Francisco. The guy that was getting arrested was face down in the pavement and the cop pulled his weapon and put a round in his back. Killed him while being cuffed. They just said the verdict was in and that the LEOs excuse was that he was trying to pull his taser but accidently pulled his gun because he did not have enough firearms training.

Now, if you ask any LEO they are proficient in firearms and seems that that was one of the arguments some of the state sheriffs were trying to make that the citizen population was not trained like they were. I know that this was almost half way around the world, per say, but I think we can now put that argument down now when raised about OC.
 

eye95

Well-known member
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Jan 6, 2010
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13,524
Location
Fairborn, Ohio, USA
What was the name of the officer?

We now have a ready comeback when LEOs say that they are better trained than we are: "You mean like Officer So-and-so in San Francisco?"
 

NathanForrest

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Joined
Jul 6, 2010
Messages
13
The guy that was getting arrested was face down in the pavement and the cop pulled his weapon and put a round in his back. Killed him while being cuffed.

Why would the BART cop need to tazer a man who was handcuffed, lying face down on the ground, and apparently not resisting? Maybe someone brighter than I am can justify that one. :rolleyes:
 

NathanForrest

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California transit cop guilty of manslaughter

A white former transit police officer was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter on Thursday in the videotaped shooting death of an unarmed black man last year that triggered riots in Oakland, California.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and other civic leaders had called for public restraint as police braced for renewed violence sparked by the Los Angeles jury's verdict, but protests in Oakland after the decision were calm.

The panel of four men and eight women deliberated for about six hours over two days before reaching their decision, which indicated they essentially believed defense arguments that the shooting on a train platform in Oakland was a tragic accident rather than the intentional act of a rogue cop.

The defendant in the racially charged trial, Johannes Mehserle, 28, testified that he mistakenly drew his gun instead of his electric Taser and shot Oscar Grant, 22, while trying to subdue him during a confrontation on New Year's Day 2009.

But prosecutors, who sought a conviction for second-degree murder, said Mehserle had "lost all control" and shot Grant on purpose because he thought Grant was resisting arrest.

Jurors can render an involuntary manslaughter conviction if they believe the defendant lacked an intent to kill but engaged in conduct so grossly negligent that it amounts to a crime.

It generally carries a sentence of two to four years in prison, but the jury also accepted a sentencing "enhancement" for Mehserle's use of a handgun in the commission of a crime.

"We are outraged that the jury did not find guilty of murder in a case that is so egregiously excessive and mishandled," said Benjamin Todd Jealous, head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Mehserle, who had been free on $3 million bond, showed no reaction as the verdict was read and was immediately taken into custody. The former police officer for the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) rail system faces sentencing on August 6.

FAMILY FURY

Relatives of Grant, a young father who worked as a grocery store butcher, reacted with outrage.

"My son was murdered, and the law hasn't held the officer accountable the way he should be," Grant's mother, Wanda Johnson, shouted outside the courthouse.

Police in Oakland, east of San Francisco, had been on alert in preparation for civil unrest, and Schwarzenegger had assured the city's mayor that the state would help maintain order.

Demonstrations were planned in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area, where many workers crowded into BART trains and clogged roads on Thursday after being cleared to leave work early in anticipation of potential violence.

But downtown Oakland's streets were quiet Thursday evening, with about 1,000 people gathered in a peaceful protest. Many expressed anger, with a huge banner strung on a traffic light pole that read "Oakland says Guilty."

"It's unbelievable this guy is getting less jail time than someone who wrote a bad check," said Barbara Plantiko, a 41-year-old immigration lawyer at the protest. "I just don't buy he got confused. I don't think that it was an accident."

Anger over the slaying flared after video shot by onlookers and shown widely over the Web and television in January 2009 showed Grant lying face down when he was shot in the back.

Mehserle was seen holstering his gun immediately afterward and putting his hands on his head as in disbelief.

The killing unleashed charges of police brutality and a night of civil unrest in Oakland, where people smashed store windows and set cars on fire and police made over 100 arrests.

The judge in the case, which was moved to Los Angeles due to heavy pretrial publicity in the Bay Area, held there was too little evidence to show the killing was premeditated, ruling out a first-degree murder conviction.

Had he been convicted of second-degree murder, Mehserle would have faced 15 years to life in prison. The jury could alternatively have found him guilty of voluntary manslaughter or acquitted him entirely.
 

Brimstone Baritone

Regular Member
Joined
Mar 26, 2010
Messages
786
Location
Leeds, Alabama, USA
I don't buy that it was murder, but I agree that even the use of a taser in that situation would have been gross overreaction. One life lost and one career ended because someone submitted peacefully to an arrest. I'm sure there's a lesson to be learned here...
 

AL Ranger

Regular Member
Joined
Apr 11, 2010
Messages
238
Location
Huntsville, Alabama, USA
Seems to be a problem that "supposed" properly trained LEO's are not doing what training calls for in these situations. A major discussion topic in these forums is the proper training of LEOs vs the supposedly untrained civilian. Stories like this can really hurt the cause. I don't know how someone on their chest, on the ground, with their hands behind their backs could be trying to "resist arrest" to warrant the use of a taser. The scary part for us in Alabama is that resisting unlawful arrest is legal. Are any of us going to resist knowing we could shot for our efforts?
 
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