You suggest there was an intent to “twist the truth”, yet the only support given for that suggestion is the article’s omission of some facts that do not alter the conclusion a reader is likely to draw (as you’ve conceded). I omitted those facts for brevity and focus – not to “shy away from the facts”. The focus of the article is not the Kaady story, but on the prevalence and acceptance of horrifying killings by police in the US – that provides the context for the horrifying killing of Oscar Grant by police (as the title suggests). For readers seeking more details on the Kaady story, I included links to two reports containing the omitted facts.

When those facts are seen in the context of the many other missing facts, the horror is likely increased not diminished. If you are suggesting that the officers’ knowlege of the details of the car accident, and of Mr. Kaady’s confused response to that accident, factored into the decision to kill Mr. Kaady, then you are suggesting justifications that Willard did not claim himself. Here’s an excerpt from his interview with investigators:

Q: And in responding to this car you had heard that there had been one accident that he had fled from and then did you hear of another accident?

A: I did not initially. I had heard just of the one, that he had fled from and that his vehicle was on fire when he left.

Willard’s initial account of the killing made no mention of an alleged assault: he had to be reminded of that by his lawyer. He corrects the lawyer by pointing out that his knowledge was secondhand hearsay, and clearly assigned little real weight to that.

In the interview, Willard unambiguously revealed the state of his mind at the point he and Bergin encountered Mr. Kaady:

A: …at that point I, I assessed it without getting out of the car. I said, “Okay, I don’t, I don’t see any weapons do you?: And he [Bergin] said, “No” that the man we were directing our attention at was completely nude…The first thing that struck me was that this man is seriously injured…he is, appears to be, just kinda catatonic…”

The term “catatonic” is used to mean “in stupor”, i.e. unresponsive. Yet Willard immediately started giving orders. And when this man that they’d determined was completely nude, seriously injured, and “kinda catonic” did not respond to those orders, Bergin Tasered him! In a Jan. 30 hearing, a U.S. Magistrate Judge ruled that Bergin should have known he wasn’t allowed to use a Taser against someone who doesn’t pose an immediate threat but has simply failed to comply with commands.

Worse, Willard essentially confessed that the Tasering was pointless:

A: …I’m still looking at him and assessing him and I start thinking, “I don’t want this guy anywhere near me” and I’m thinking, “If he’ll, if he complies what am I gonna do?” Well I’m gonna wait until other officers get here before we do anything.

According to Willard, after they’d Tasered Mr. Kaady three times, he first ran away from them, then towards them screaming “I’m gonna kill you”. Willard then shot him – not from fear of that hollow threat, but because:

A:…I didn’t want to touch this man, I felt there was a real risk to my safety and to the officer that was there if we weren’t protected before we came in physical contact with this man…probably my first and foremost concern was Hepatitis. And then secondly the potential for the AIDS virus being also transmitted through the blood…I actually even had a little opening on the tip of one of my fingers at the time that I was concerned about.

And that’s why he had to kill Fouad Kaady. Tragic ignorance of a reckless rookie? No. Willard had over 23 years of law enforcement experience, certified in CPR, and as he told investigators:

A: …a member of our Crisis Hostage Negotiation Team and have been for, well, a number of years. And then I’m also a member of the Crisis Intervention Team trained to deal with drug-affected and mentally ill people…We learned intervention techniques primarily how to assess and communicate with people who are either mentally ill, or affected by some sort of drugs and, and to do so in the most advantageous manner to protect them as well as us.

Obviously, eliminating individual abusive and incompetent police is not enough. Emphasizing improved training is not enough. As long as police are confident that society places so little value on the lives they take, then we can expect the horror to continue.

In an article titled “Officer-involved deaths need scrutiny” (http://www.tigardtimes.com/opinion/story.php?story_id=124715813516039100), The Tigard Times reports:

“Kaady’s family has received a settlement of $1 million from the city of Sandy but will pursue a broader lawsuit against Clackamas County and one of its sheriff’s deputies.”

Sooo lets review; The police that were at the scene and directly involved in the events that took place on the platform at the Fruitvale BART station are accessories to a crime and should be charged and prosecuted as such (if it were anybody else that is exactly what would have happened). How can the Alameda County DA say he is not going to bring charges against any of the other officer involved in the assault/murder of Oscar Grant? They were there they were involved and one office Mr. Pirone did strike Mr. Grant. Then the same office Mr. Pirone put his knee on Mr. Grant’s neck to hold him down while officer Mehserle shot and killed Mr. Grant. In spite of all the video clips of this event BART, the City of Oakland and the county DA seem to be saying DO NOT BELIEVE YOUR LYING EYES. The silence surrounding this matter from the agencies and individuals who are supposed to adjudicate this crime is overwhelming. Officer Pirone clearly hits Mr. Grant for no reason at all. Officer Mehserle clearly shoots and kills Mr. Grant for no reason at all. How much plainer do you want it?

Now that one of the officers involved in the Oscar Grant shooting has been charged. We have moved form the DO NOT BELIEVE YOUR LYING EYES spin to the I WAS SCARED FOR MY LIFE spin. The defense is seemly going to take the defense that officer Mehserle mistakenly pulled his service revolver INSTEAD of his Taser. Still can not explain why the other officer is not being charged for hitting Mr. Grant for any good reason.

For those who do not know this is what a taser gun used by BART looks like follow this link.

http://carlosmiller.com/2009/01/11/was-bart-police-officer-johannes-mehserle-even-carrying-a-taser-gun/

For those of you who do not know what a Sig Sauer .40 cal (BART service revolver) looks like follow this link.

http://www.remtek.com/arms/sig/model/229/229.htm

These two weapons look different feel different handle differently and weigh different. The taser gun carried by BART Officers weighs 175 grams (0.45 pounds / 7 ounces). The Sig Sauer 40 cal. weighs 27.5 oz. That is 20 oz heavier than a Taser. The grips are different I do not see how you could mistake a Taser for a service revolver (I guess this is where fearing for his life comes into play) PLEASE!!! I do not see how that defense can stand up under any scrutiny

Lets recap this, Officer is standing OVER suspect the suspect who is clearly subdued and he HAS to draw his service revolver and shoot him???? The major problem I have with this is WHY the officers did not search him for weapons once the suspect was in custody and he was in custody Oh by the way. The suspect is on his stomach, and apparently incapable of making any movement that TWO arresting officers could not control Ya think. Sooo What Happened??? There is also something called trigger discipline that should come into play when someone who is really experienced in using a weapon. I do not believe the officer involved showed ANY of That.

There was a range of procedural misconduct at the scene that lead up to the tragic end that transpired that should be unacceptable. Did the officers have any idea who the potential suspects were (with all the surveillance on BART trains and platforms there is no reason that the officers should not have known WHO they were looking for). If BART has spent all that money to put in place a surveillance system that does work when situation like the one on new years eve happen they have spent a lot of money for NOTHING and the public is paying for it with their LIVES!!! No search for weapons once in custody is absolutely ridiculous (that alone would have removed the fear factor). No call for medical help after shots were fired (if medical help had been called the man might have lived). Yea the officers involved probably were scared for their life (scared that they broke a host of procedural rules and then shot a man with no apparent justification). So let the spinning begin.

Peace

S Murph

The October 2007 DOJ report was historic because it was the first time the US attempted a nationwide measurement of ALL types of deaths that occurred in the process of arrest – inluding all homicides (not only “justifiable”), intoxication, suicide, and other causes. This fact deserves repeating: previously, NO national measure of arrest-related deaths. Not only did the government maintain NO independent body to investigate deaths that occurred during apprehension by police or while in police custody, until recently they didn’t even require that such deaths be reported! While the UK has its “Independent Police Complaints Commission” (IPCC) to tally and investigate all deaths in custody (that’s mandated by law to be entirely independent of police), there is no comparable national body in the US.

Looking at the numbers for “justifiable homicides by police” in the 1990s, we see:

1990 385
1991 367
1992 418
1993 455
1994 462
1995 389
1996 356
1997 369
1998 367
1999 308

That totals to 3876 “justifiable homicides by police” during the 90′s – close to double the 2000 killings documented by the Stolen Lives Project during that period. That also averages to 387.6 killings per year – slightly over one police killing each day.

Furthermore, to see this in the proper global perspective, according to US State Dept 2006 Country Reports, that year 48 of 191 countries (about 25%) had NO deaths following police contact – confirmed, alleged, or suspected. This group included not only US allies Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, Germany, and Canada, but also a favorite US Bad Guy – Cuba.

So why are US police killing lives every day?

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/justify.htm

Their definition of “justifiable” is “the killing of a felon by a law enforcement officer in the line of duty”(?!). So if you are EVER convicted of a felon at any time in your life and you are killed by police, apparently to the DoJ it must’ve been a “justifiable” killing. One wonders what the count would be if the “unjustifiable” killings were included. As one estimate, our Stolen Lives Project (www.stolenlives.org) named over 2,000 police killing victims in the U.S. in the 1990s; of those, about 160 were from Washington State (we know of some that didn’t make the publication deadline), which has about 1/48th of the U.S. population. A simple extrapolation, assuming Washington State doesn’t have any higher a rate than other states (with only 3% of its population being African American, it likely has a LOWER rate than other states), would mean there were 160*48 = 7680 police killings in the U.S. in the 1990s. So the DoJ numbers may be a serious undercount. About the only thing unique regarding the Oscar Grant case is that it was caught on video, so the police couldn’t lie about Oscar being a “threat” like they usually do.

The Justice Department reported 2,002 arrest-related deaths during the three years from 2003 through 2005 (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/ardus05.pdf). Killings by police were the leading cause of such deaths during this period, reported over four times more often than any other cause of arrest-related death: 1,095 killings (55 percent). There were exactly 1,096 days in 2003-2005. The conclusion stares you in the face: that means, on average, the US police killed a person every day.

That suggests provocative questions to ask oneself each day: who did US police kill today and why? Why are US police killing more often than their fellow plundering Anglo powers, Australia and UK?