When my ex had the kids for a short while she used them as her outlet about everything she thought of me. They didn't believe most of it, but it hurt them real bad. In this situation it can be much worse.

Just some blather: "highly paid" and "well-compensated" are the same thing, dude. I would argue about either. Nevertheless, this guy wasn't even held to a normal standard, let along a higher one for a trained law enforcement officer.

Bystanders: I could see a point if they had been rushing the cops, but as they just seemed to be shouting, not so much. I probably would have shouted, too.

Do I believe he got it because he was black? No. Not really. Do I believe the cop got off because he was white. Again, not really, but a little less sure.

I know this really doesn't help, and it applies to me as well, but if you don't go around f-ing up, this is less likely to happen to you. However, like I said, that doesn't help, and turnstile jumping, or whatever certainly doesn't deserve instant execution.

To the mama, very sorry Ma'am.

Thank you for your comment. It is the first one to directly challenge the claims of the article. Such challenges can help me find errors. Unfortunately, although it is a good effort, this critique fails to meet even the most minimal standards of reasoned arguments. Still, I am grateful for this opportunity for clarification.

To be compelling, a critique must at least:

1. Work within the context
2. Quote from the text when making claims about the text
3. Support claims with facts or authoritative opinions

This critique fails to achieve #1 and #3, and only partially achieves #2.

Context: As you can see from the date, the article was written within the first week of the killing. From the start, and throughout, the article makes clear that it is a response to widespread SPECULATION in the state media that the killer “had meant to fire his Taser stun gun rather than his firearm”.

> 1. Regarding your assertion that “You don’t have to be a weapons expert
> to feel the difference between holding about two pounds and holding less
> than half a pound – try it”. Yes. Try it under the same circumstances.
> Responding to a big fight on the train, armed with a device that you
> just started carrying.
>
> 2. Regarding the color of the device “Police pistols are all black,
> sometimes with a very dark brown grip. The X26 has bright yellow
> markings on it. It also has a 2-digit LED display.” In a stressful
> situation, you will not look at your taser… or your gun. Same point…
> and counterpoint as #1.

Out of context. Neither of the two cited Chronicle articles that spread the Taser-confusion rumor attempted to attribute the confusion to the fight or lack of Taser experience. At the time of the first report, the killer had yet to even be identified and the report conceded that it was not known if he even was carrying a Taser. So this critique is presenting a new defense, and then claiming the article’s argument is flawed because it does not respond to the new defense – that was never presented! That’s a claim that is less than compelling.

> 3. You made this easy… “The X26 has a safety on the grip that must be
> released. The Glock safety is on the trigger.” So…? The safety is
> easily manipulated as part of the draw stroke.

This challenge seems to have overlooked this text in the article:

> So let’s review the minimum steps of a Taser deployment:
> …
> 2. You reach on the grip and flip the safety up.

If the “safety is easily manipulated as part of the draw stroke”, and that manipulation did not occur on the grip, then you know you don’t have a Taser in your hands.

It also seemed to have overlooked the correction I added above, that police later reported that the killer carried a Sig-Sauer, not a Glock. So my argument is flawed for that reason – wrong assumption – not the one presented in this critique.

The remainder of the critique makes claims about the article, without quoting any text in the article as the basis for those claims. So it is impossible for me to either concede or rebut those mystery claims that are, again, less than compelling. It is easy to rant, but to free our minds from the state’s propaganda juggernaut requires vigilant attention, focus, and rigor.

1. Regarding your assertion that “You don’t have to be a weapons expert to feel the difference between holding about two pounds and holding less than half a pound – try it”. Yes. Try it under the same circumstances. Responding to a big fight on the train, armed with a device that you just started carrying.

2. Regarding the color of the device “Police pistols are all black, sometimes with a very dark brown grip. The X26 has bright yellow markings on it. It also has a 2-digit LED display.” In a stressful situation, you will not look at your taser… or your gun. Same point… and counterpoint as #1.

3. You made this easy… “The X26 has a safety on the grip that must be released. The Glock safety is on the trigger.” So…? The safety is easily manipulated as part of the draw stroke.

My point is (and you should really concede this) is that nobody is saying that the officer is not responsible for killing Grant. Really, they aren’t. So quit trying argue as if they were. The weapon confusion issue is simply a mitigating issue that calls into question the one thing that is required for the charge of Murder… intent.

Just because you don’t like police, even if it’s for good cause, does not mean that this officer intended to put a bullet in Grant’s back.

>>>
After listening to seven days of testimony, Judge C. Don Clay concluded that Mehserle hadn’t gotten his stun gun and his service pistol mixed up when he shot Oscar Grant in the back at the Fruitvale Station in Oakland early New Year’s Day.

“There’s no doubt in my mind,” Clay said at the close of the former officer’s preliminary hearing in Oakland, “that Mr. Mehserle intended to shoot Oscar Grant with a gun and not a Taser.”
<<>>
“Human nature tells us that not only would (Mehserle) have acted differently on the platform, I don’t think you would have been able to shut him up,” Stein said. “I think he would have said repeatedly, to anyone who would listen, ‘Oh my God, I made a mistake.’ “

If it was a hate crime, i wonder if the officer has had a history of violence against minorities?

…However, neither Mehserle nor his lawyers have offered any explanation for the shooting, and the Taser possibility remains speculation.
[NOTE: Finally, an admission that the Taser-confusion story is mere speculation!]

…A few cases in which officers have confused firearms for stun guns have arisen elsewhere…One who avoided prosecution was Marcie Noriega, a police officer in the city of Madera, who fatally shot Everardo Torres in 2002 with a gun she said she thought was a Taser…District Attorney Ernest LiCalsi decided not to file criminal charges against Noriega, who remains on the police force. The Torres family’s civil suit against the officer and the city is pending.

Changes in weapons

Changes in police weaponry since the Madera case, though, could make it harder for an officer to argue that he mistook a service weapon for a stun gun.

Tasers, which were about the same size and weight as pistols in 2002, now are smaller and weigh less than half as much. While Noriega held her gun on the same side as the Taser, officers now are told to keep the weapons in different areas.

“A Taser looks different from a gun,” said Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and a former federal prosecutor. “It’s hard to believe that it’s a reasonable mistake for an officer who’s had any training at all.”

WHY DO SO MANY OF YOU SUPPORT SLAVERY??!!??

All of these drugs and alcohol make for nice little slaves! We serve them and keep their shackles on with blind obedience! We sacrifice our friends and our loved ones for another fix or another drink. WHY?

Tobacco isn’t much better, either! It’s just not quite as destructive as the alcohol and drugs.

WHY KEEP OURSELVES SERVING THE DRUG AND ALCOHOL MASTERS????

Get help! Free yourselves from the chains of addiction!

IS THIS FORM OF SLAVERY SOMETHING THAT DR. KING WOULD APPROVE?

Finally, someone is getting the point I am attempting to make! I AM NOT SIDING WITH THIS OFFICER! I think it is a damn shame when anyone loses a life…PERIOD!

But why is it that we only become agitated, vocal, and mobilized for police violence? Why do we sit on our butts when our children, friends, and neighbors are dying every single day due to our own faults? Why do we seem only truly concerned when it is “DEATH BY COP”?

As for you, CATWALK, don’t lecture. Spend time with your nephew. Bring him in even closer to you than ever before, if you can. Show him the good things in life. It doesn’t even have to be anything that costs money, but do whatever you can to grow closer with him. Maybe with time he will appreciate your friendship more than the dummies he hangs with, especially if they start to rag on him and/or run you in the ground.

When the time is right you can plant a small seed in his brain from time to time. Things that you have learned from experience. Not too much too often, though. Maybe a comment about how you or someone you knew blew everything on drugs or a party with nothing too show. Just kind of reminiscing without lecturing of hashing it too long. Whatever you happen to mention it should be truthful and just sort of a small comment without being directed at him or his behavior.

I will never have all of the answers but I do have experiences and have found some things that have worked for me. I will pray for you and your nephew, especially. I will pray for all who want real change in their lives, too. Love is the best and clearest path to real change. I believe that is what Dr. King was trying to teach us.