He was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter today by a jury. People are out in the streets in Oakland right now up in arms about this. They think he was guilty of murder.

Decide for yourself, the shooting happens at about 1:25 in this video. I have no issues with the decision, and I certainly don't agree with the people who are on TV crying that he was "murdered in cold blood".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Kdd949zwwc&feature=fvw

the cop who shot him, you can see it in his face in that video that he knows he just ****ed up... he should have NEVER pulled his gun out. Why do situations with police always blow up like this, the cops over force always cause the suspect to be more aggressive.

The cop's defense is that he meant to grab for his taser, but got the gun instead, somehow didn't realize it and shot the dude. I question why he would have to grab for his taser in the first place considering the victim is cuffed and subdued by at least one other officer.

I haven't handled a proper taser, but I have difficulty imagining it could be mistaken for a gun too easily.

I tend to agree. From the image below, it seems like the grip is similar. However, it doesn't seem like it's something he wouldn't notice before pulling the trigger.

Forgetting all the legal mumbo jumbo, it was a terrible mistake with no good outcome for anybody involved. Just tragic.

The protests have officially turned into riots. :facepalm:

Dump a ton of adrenaline through your body and you might be surprised. It's my understanding that his Taser was carried on the same side of his body as his firearm - bad idea. I always carried mine crossdraw on the opposite side. Those are two things you do not want to accidentally mix up.

WTF? Apparently California still uses the term "malice aforethought" to describe the state of mind that's an element of murder. That's really ****ing weird; most states have abandoned that.

Anyway, what happened is pretty horrible. The jury's verdict, not necessarily so horrible. More tomorrow.

Hmm, that's a good point. In normal circumstances I think it would be near impossible for someone to mistake one for the other if they had handled even just one of them previously. But high adrenaline heat of the moment stuff can change things.
I don't know the story well enough to judge.

It doesn't help when there's a crowd of *******s yelling at you for doing your job.

whats that suppossed to mean, got something to say? say it

He's objecting to the assumption that the police using too much force makes the arrested more violent since no consideration was made for the fact that a violent arrested makes the police use more force, or the effect of a hostile crowd.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

I thought that's what training is for

+1

And if you can't handle a little adrenline rush then you shouldn't be a cop.

...hence the involuntary manslaughter conviction.

I don't really think anyone is apposed to the conviction here.

Exactly?

I wasn't assuming I was stating my observations

No kidding, zanardi. Just shut up already.

No, and WTF?

If all people were perfect, there would be no need for police in the first place.

Everyone gets adrenaline rushes but I'm just saying you have to be able to handle it != perfect. That guy couldn't handle it, he flew off the deep end.

Californians: Your penal code sucks. I've only read two provisions and I already hate the thing. Why can't you just use intentionally/knowingly/recklessly/negligently like a real state?

your assuming he flew off the deep end. to me flying off the deep end would have been purposefully pulling your gun and shooting the guy multiple times. from what it looks like from the outcome of the case it was an accident where he mistook his gun for his tazer. not exactly "flying off the deep end" but still had deadly consequences(sp?) so yeah i think the conviction was appropriate.

One of police officer admitted to yelling obscenities and threatening to taser people before the encounter even began. The officer was caught on tape calling Grant a n----r. (to clarify, this wasn't the officer that ended up shooting Grant in the back) It's hardly surprising that the crowd reacted hostilely. Maybe the crowd acted like *******s, but loud obscenities + threats of violence + racial slurs = angry mob. (link)

There is no way to replicate the adrenaline rush one would experience in that situation in a training setting. You can't tell if someone can handle it until they actually face the real life situation for the first time.

Out of curiosity, is it normal for cops to carry their guns with the safety off? I can understand making the mix-up, especially, if they're on the same side of his hip, but I have trouble imagining that, in an adrenaline rush, he flipped off the safety, too, unless he does that out of habit?

Or maybe standard issue guns don't have safeties...? That would seem like a bad idea, though.

A lot of guns don't have safeties. Glocks, which are very popular for police, do not have safeties like you're thinking of. You can debate all day on a gun forum about whether safeties like that are good or not (personally, I don't like them).

The idea being, if he didn't need the gun, he shouldn't have pulled it out so the safety wouldn't matter, and if he did need it, then the safety would just get in the way. His finger shouldn't have been on the trigger if he wasn't ready to fire because in a stressful situation, you can accidentally tense your finger and fire the weapon.

But of course most of that is irrelevant because (apparently? i don't know the details) he thought it was a taser. JLee (of course) knows the solution here, I've never heard of someone carrying a taser and a gun on the same side for readily apparent reasons.

Edit: Avenger, exactly. You can't really blame him for what was a reasonable accident, but it was still his fault and it had serious consequences.

Indeed. He screwed up royally and is going to be punished for it.

if someone were ccw, this tragedy could have been prevented!

like bobthemasher alluded to, many police sidearms (the glock and variants) have three safeties: a trigger safety, grip safety and a drop safety. the mechanism is different than a manual safety, but they're just as effective at preventing accidental discharges (which is the point of a safety.)

It's not the gun's fault. This cop was a ****-up, he wasn't trained properly, and the United States is at fault for being one of the few countries so screwed up that a LTL gun is an appropriate device to use on people who have already been subdued.

Always a troublemaker!



I think you got it right with the first part, but I would disagree with your assessment that a LTL gun is an "appropriate device" to use on people who have already been subdued in the US. I think some evidence would be required to support that claim. Also, I think a discussion of what defines "subdued" would be appropriate, and it would be important to point out that pain compliance is sometimes a very necessary and acceptable method of gaining compliance, and a taser in drive stun mode (which would be the idea at the range at which he was operating) would generally fall under that umbrella.

I admit, though, that I don't know much about the mechanics of using a taser (i've never held one) such as triggers, modes, buttons, etc. beyond the very basics.

The police seem to think so, and Taser International aggressively markets it to American and Canadian police forces as a first resort in all situations.

There are many, many examples of police abusing tasers. Everything from using them during routine traffic stops, using them repeatedly on restrained suspects, using them to pacify misbehaving children to sodomy. Some of it is due to bad cops, but a lot of the problem is because of how police are trained (i.e. by Taser International salesmen.) You wind up with otherwise-alright police tasering people 50 times because it's easier and they think it can't kill.

A taser is a lethal weapon. The only time a police officer should be reaching for one is when they'd be equally happy trying to disable someone with a regular gun.

We need more eye for an eye justice. You shoot someone, you get shot back. You kill someone, you get killed in the same fashion.

Sounds like there's not much disagreement about the involuntary manslaughter verdict. It seems right to me. It's harder for me to believe that the officer intentionally shot a cuffed man in full view of an angry crowd than it is for me to believe that he mistook his handgun for his taser.

I'd prefer that he gets the maximum sentence (four years) though. As unintentional killings go, this one strikes me as unusually bad.

Before mousing over, I figured it was even money whether this would be sodomy with a taser, or tasering someone engaged in sodomy.

None of my handguns (issued Glock 21SF, personally owned Glock 36, personally owned Ruger LCP) have 'standard' safeties.

Tasers do have safeties - when the safety is off, the laser/LED is on (on the X26 model). If a camera is equipped, that also activates when the safety is off.


A Taser is not considered deadly force. If deadly force is warranted, do explain to me why I would choose a less reliable option that gives me one shot and requires that I be within the 'kill zone' of someone wielding a knife in order to even engage. Fortunately, you don't make the rules - people like you would get people like me killed.

Thank you, JLee, for once again proving my point.