On New Year's Day, several officers with the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) police were making some arrests on a crowded train station platform in Oakland, California. One of those arrested, an unarmed 22-year-old black man, was forced face down on the platform and then suddenly shot in the back by a white officer.
The incident was captured on a cell phone video and played over and over again on the internet and by the media. The young man's death led to several hours of rioting by members of Oakland's sizable black community. Cars were set on fire and storefronts were smashed. More than 100 rioteers were arrested and around 300 business establishments were damaged.
The shooting is being investigated by the Oakland Police Department and by the Alameda County District Attorney's office. The officer who shot the victim resigned from the BART police force and will most likely face criminal charges.
What would have caused the officer to shoot an unarmed man in the back, one who had been forced face down on the ground? Who knows? But some experts have questioned whether the officer fired his pistol deliberately or mistakenly believed he was using his tazer gun instead. Sound farfetched? Not really.
Because police tazer guns are designed similar to the pistols officers usually carry, sooner or later something like this was bound to happen. It is quite possible that in the highly-charged excitement of making an arrest, an officer could have confused his pistol with his tazer gun.
In order to prevent any such accidental police shootings, law enforcement agencies should immediately demand that manufacturers of police tazer guns change the configuration of those weapons so that they cannot be confused with a pistol.
1 comment:
This happened several years ago, I forget the jurisdiction. The shooter was a female officer and the shootee was, as I recall, in the back of a patrol car acting rather badly.
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