You did ask me a very direct question on the matter. I’ll drop the matter for the sake of keeping the thread on topic, but suffice to say: There are genetic differences that account for aggression.
If this verdict is valid then my trick above is valid and anyone using it would always have to be reduced to involuntary manslaughter based on the precedent set by this case.
There is no precedent set in this case that wasn’t already established. The question the jury had to answer with regards to the different charges were essentially whether this murder was an accident or intentional/premeditated.
Apparently, the jury found no reason to believe that the officer intended to kill Grant before the altercation. The jury found that the officer was guilty of grievous incompetence, but not premeditated murder.
It was not previously established that having a gun and something that looks like a gun creates an automatic plausible deniability, because tasers are a recent addition to the police arsenal. You can be sure that every cop that carries a taser and shoots someone will henceforth use this defense in every single case. If this cop did shoot unintentionally, where was his apology? Didn’t his mother teach him to say sorry when kills someone? Maybe he was not sorry. Maybe he was glad, like Germanicus. Maybe the cognitive “error” that caused his hand to grab the gun instead of the taser and not bother to look at what he was holding before flicking the safety switch required on pistols sold in California and pulling the trigger was a burning desire to shoot the guy. Maybe he thought the guy was just another bum that nobody would care about.
“Typical libertarian bs”- scineram
“Hahaha, you silly fool.”- Germanicus
Take a 1-week break, both of you.
“It was not previously established that having a gun and something that looks like a gun creates an automatic plausible deniability, because tasers are a recent addition to the police arsenal. You can be sure that every cop that carries a taser and shoots someone will henceforth use this defense in every single case.”
I am not sure whether or not the taser defense has been used before, I’d have to look up related cases. However, in every case where a police shooting is contested, the same questions will have to be answered “was the act premeditated or accidental?” That question will be for a jury to decide. In this case, the jury found no reason to believe the act was premeditated. Perhaps in another case the jury will find differently. The point is that the criteria for deciding between first or second degree murder and voluntary or involuntary manslaughter were long established. The taser defense worked in this trial but a jury might not find it so compelling under different circumstances.
In an interview after the verdict was announced, one of Grant’s uncles said that there was evidence presented to the jury that showed that, before the shooting, Mehserle pulled out his taser, then re-holstered it, and then pulled out his gun.
“In an interview after the verdict was announced, one of Grant’s uncles said that there was evidence presented to the jury that showed that, before the shooting, Mehserle pulled out his taser, then re-holstered it, and then pulled out his gun.”
Source? Preferably one better than his uncle?
I watched the video, it looked like they pulled Grant to the ground, and when he struggled, Mehserle went for his taser and made a mistake. That seems to be what the jury concluded as well.
EDIT: I also found out that on the civil side, Grant’s daughter already got a 1.5 million dollar settlement from BART and the civil suit with the rest of the family is still pending but one can imagine they’ll be taken care of too. I don’t know what Grant did, but I imagine he was working at the 30-40k level, so it would’ve taken him something like 30+ years to make that much money assuming he didn’t get thrown back in jail or lose his job or both in that timespan.
Tasers always have bright yellow on them and weigh half as much as a pistol. There’s a wikipedia article on this that has plenty of info. It is hard to believe that it was actually an accident. Too bad this guy won’t be put into the general population in prison.
“You don’t think it seems a little far fetched that shooting someone in the back is done without lethal intent?” - Caley McKibbin
Has the fact that the officer said he thought he was reaching for and employing a NON LETHAL weapon completely escaped you? Because it just might bear on intent…
“If you believe that story I’ll just call you Gullible.” - Caley McKibbin
Actually it’s not gullibility, it’s fact. Officers are trained how to pull their gun and it’s not unreasonable that when an officer has an instinct to draw his taser he might go for his gun by mistake. Lots of things that may seem unreasonable to you are perfectly reasonable, and even predictable to a certain extent, in high pressure situations where people have tons of adrenaline flowing.
“It was not previously established that having a gun and something that looks like a gun creates an automatic plausible deniability” - Caley McKibbin
Nor has this case done so. The jury found in this instance the cop screwed up but didn’t intend to kill. And while you may disagree, it’s not an unreasonable conclusion.
“Tasers always have bright yellow on them and weigh half as much as a pistol. There’s a wikipedia article on this that has plenty of info. It is hard to believe that it was actually an accident. Too bad this guy won’t be put into the general population in prison.” - E.R. Olovetto
FIne and dandy. Now I’m going to put both before you on a table with a cloth over them. Next to you will be a good friend and a random guy you don’t know anything about other than he has been violent recently. I’ll give that guy a few minutes to gin up your adrenaline to fight or flight levels, and then when I pull the cloth off you have 1 or less seconds to decide which one to grab, the pistol or the taser, without looking directly at either or the violent guy you don’t know may kill you, your friend, or some random passerby.
Context.
This is not a “state vs non-state” issue. It’s a “people don’t agree with the verdict and also happen to be state haters” issue.
There was a plausible explanation for the involuntary nature of the shooting. There was supposedly video evidence of the cop’s reaction to the shooting. The defense failed to convince the jury using any of the objections brought up in this thread or any others they could think of that it wasn’t involuntary. Maybe there was a failure of justice here - the cop could be lying, the charges of tampered with/missing evidence might be true, etc. And of course being a State justice system we can be fairly confident that a superior trial would have been held and better restitution would have been had in a free market for law. But just because the guy works for the State doesn’t mean it’s impossible for him to commit involuntary manslaughter as opposed to murder.
Also, the charges that anyone can now just carry squirt guns and murder with impunity is ridiculous and ignores pretty much everything about the workings of case law. Throwing all reason out in any attempt to complain about the government does us no good. It is not scholarly and it is not logical. It is as emotionally charged and reckless as anything you’d expect to hear out of an economically ignorant statist advocating some crazy policy decision.
FIne and dandy. Now I’m going to put both before you on a table with a cloth over them. Next to you will be a good friend and a random guy you don’t know anything about other than he has been violent recently. I’ll give that guy a few minutes to gin up your adrenaline to fight or flight levels, and then when I pull the cloth off you have 1 or less seconds to decide which one to grab, the pistol or the taser, without looking directly at either or the violent guy you don’t know may kill you, your friend, or some random passerby.
Context.
[mod edit: sentence deleted] The guy was face down on the ground. He posed a risk of kicking the cop in the shins?
[Olovetto edit: I have seen people using $*** recently in a non-hostile way and the word I said is allowed on TV…]
[Translation: “One second, yeah right.”]
[mod: okay.]
cporter: “Throwing all reason out in any attempt to complain about the government does us no good. It is not scholarly and it is not logical. It is as emotionally charged and reckless as anything you’d expect to hear out of an economically ignorant statist advocating some crazy policy decision.”
Who here has done that?
Daniel,
I believe this to be supremely flawed reasoning. I have no particular opinion as to the validity of the ruling; I have almost no information about it, and certainly not as much as a juror. I of course have strong opinions about State law and law enforcement, have serious issues with Germanicus’ anti-anti-white crusade, and am not all that confident that the same verdict would result from repeated runs of this trial with new names and faces. I don’t see that as any excuse to be completely unreasonable, however.
It really is in outer space to describe that as a high pressure situation. 4 cops beating up on 1 guy is high pressure… not. When Person A has a gun and Person B is unarmed it ain’t Person A that is sweating. Common sense. The cop had all day to look at what he was doing. You make it sound like it was a do or die wild west quickdraw match. The danger was zero. Instead of going to jail the cop should have received a Darwin Award.
The question now is how many times are police homicides going to multiply by with the taser/gun dilemma? How often will it be unforgettable people that bite the dust?
Also, the government cop had no right to pin Grant to the ground and taser him.
“Also, the government cop had no right to pin Grant to the ground and taser him.”
Says who?