He shouldn't have shot him plain and simple, but how screwed up on the people on the train. What happened to keeping your mouth shut and letting the police do their job. How about we yell at them and hope they ignore us. People always looking for some action even if they have to create it, its sad.

you have a point...but dying seems a bit harsh of a penalty.

I agree zig, the police officer was wrong plain and simple. You can't shoot an unarmed guy in the back. However, my comment was more in response to the people on the train who were constantly goading the police officers. It's amazing, instead of acting like civilized humans, they have to constantly scream at the police. Shooting the guy was wrong, however, the crowd was not helping the situation at all. It probably contributed to the police officer making a stupid decision.

We're talking about this circus that was going on before(and during the shooting.) Like I said before, an accident often has 1 person doing something totally incorrect, and another person(s) acting as a catalyst. That's exactly what took place here. It's obvious to me that the Bart Cops are forced to do their job in a hostile environment like this shown in the video. I think if this had been taken care of before now, then this shooting would not even have come close to happening.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dmyrx...eature=channel

See, you have a group of folks out there that will tell you this guy who got shot was doing nothing wrong that night, and that the crowd was doing nothing wrong that night.

1) He got into a fight with another group on that train. If he didn't do that, then this is avoided.

2) As you can see on the video, he is the only one of the 3 guys (against the wall) that tried to get up, and they had to force him back down. Obviously, he continued to present a problem after that. So, he did not cooperate correctly with the police. He did do some things wrong that night. It's just that some people think they can act any way they want to when being arrested. In our society, the police are given the power when you're being arrested. You do not have the right to ignore their requests etc. There are a lot of factors in this taking place, and the easiest ones to correct are going to be ignored. The shooters actions are incredibly rare, and it's difficult to detect who is going to act that way when under pressure. It's much easier to try to get people to act the way they are supposed to when being arrested, or when watching someone else being arrested.

Stupid and sad all the way around.

Who in God's name is going to start trying to squirm around and get up when a cop has a gun? And all the commotion? These "kids" have become too accustomed to seeing guns and thinking they wont die. They have no fear of weapons in the hands of anyone. Its crazy.

How in the heck that guy ever became a cop....
I thought they trained all the time for these types of situations, especially in lovely Oakland.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caG7h...car-grant-shot

This is the best video I have seen to get a feel for what was going on between the cops and the crowd. That's a damn Circus. If they weren't harassing these cops, then the cops would have been handling this situation much quicker(instead of having to keep the crowd from interfering.) You can see how you can't tell what the situation was like(very bad) unless you see a video with proper audio. It's not an excuse for what the officer did, but it's not like it was a calm situation. Not the calm situation it appears to be on the videos that don't offer audio.

just read that the transit officer, johannes mehserle, has been charged in oakland, ca, with murder for shooting oscar grant.

as he rightfully should.