Posted on 03/09/2009 10:26:14 AM PDT by SmithL
Did an affair between two BART police officers sent to quell a New Year's disturbance at the Fruitvale Station set the stage for the fatal shooting of Oscar Grant by their fellow Officer Johannes Mehserle?
That's the claim attorney John Burris makes in the wrongful-death lawsuit against the transit agency that he filed on the Grant family's behalf.
The family is seeking $50 million, an unlikely amount even given the gravity of the case. But Burris' play doesn't look to be the courtroom - he's angling for a hefty settlement from BART in advance, largely by putting political pressure on the agency.
Toward that end, Burris - a master at such lawsuits - has been steadily stoking the public relations fire under BART's cloth seat.
Last week, Burris filed documents in Alameda County Superior Court claiming that the events leading up to Grant's shooting were the result of an "unprofessional relationship" between two BART police officers who responded that night to reports of a fight on a train.
According to the March 2 complaint, a female officer "got in the face of the young men (suspected of being in the fight) and repeatedly pointed her Taser at them, threatening to tase them in the face."
One of them, Grant, got right back in her face, prompting a male officer to rush over and push him to the ground "while threatening to Taser him," the complaint says.
More words were exchanged, prompting Mehserle to come over to assist in restraining Grant, pull his gun and fire once into Grant's back.
Now, Mehserle faces murder charges and BART is enduring perhaps its worst public relations debacle...
Burris doesn't directly connect the dots. But it's plain that he's prepared to argue that the male officer's rush to assist the female cop was prompted by misplaced chivalry.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Yah good luck with that “misplaced chivalry” stuff. Even (especially?) in Oakland, it’s considered bad form to let somebody give a woman in your presence a lot of “attitude”.
$50 million? How much is a life worth?
“Burris doesn’t directly connect the dots. But it’s plain that he’s prepared to argue that the male officer’s rush to assist the female cop was prompted by misplaced chivalry.”
I hate lawyers.
I hate power hungry cops
But cops always rush over to help other cops. getting in her face and yelling at her wasn’t smart.
You Who.
Did they ever address what the guy did to prompt the police response in the first place or are we just led to believe these cops randomly picked this guy out of a crowd and began threatening him?
My Proposal:
Remove ALL Bart Cops from all the stations and trains.
Publish that there will be no insurance payouts to anyone hurt by the thugs and gangs.
See how many people ride Bart for about a month.
Repeat as necessary.
Did they ever address what the guy did to prompt the police response in the first place or are we just led to believe these cops randomly picked this guy out of a crowd and began threatening him?’
NO- there has been nothing published or said on TV about what led to the dust up.
But- In Kalifornia, Liberal attitudes in the media would be par for the course.
That fact, along with the notion that anyone who tells the cops anything in the way of witnessing an event is tatamount to getting yourself killed by the black gangs in retaliaition, leads the cops in Oakland to be operating blind most of the time, whether city cops or Bart cops.
Oakland needs a fence around it and a firebomb and needs to start over. It is a cesspool.
If open carry were allowed, there would be no muggings. (at least of people openly carrying).
Obviously not ....although it should be noted that even if they did this case ran away from the Defense a long time ago. Actually, the point when the guy was shot in the back while laying down cuffed. The moment that incident was caught on camera, that's the point this case vaporised for the Defense. After all, the best case for them at that point was that the cop thought he was holding a Taser ....and even then it would still have been difficult to convince a jury that tasing a man on the floor in the back made sense (it is possible to prove that, but good luck).
Furthermore, the public has come to be cognizant of the presence of bad cops, leading to such cases being harder for the Defence since the jury normally starts with 'bad cops,' particularly in this era of video footage.
Finally, the lawyer for the deceased is someone who is very good at the job. The police force does not have such a person on their side. In the legal system, the type of lawyer you have can make all the difference (just as OJ Simpson during his first case, or any number of celebrities and financial luminaries who have managed to squeeze away from cases that would have deep-sixed nearly anyone else). In my opinion, the cops lost the case months ago! It is just that they don't know it yet, like a cockroach that has its head cut off and is just scurrying around!
The purpose of the US$ 50 m is as explained ...to force the police department to settle. The thing is, if they do NOT settle, they will obviously not be made to pay 50 m ....but they will be paying far more than they would have had they settled. No doubt about that. Thus, they will (without a doubt) end up settling, unless they decide to pull off a very dangerous gambit that could easily blow up in their faces like an early-era locomotive engine with too much steam! Catastrophically!
As for the merits of the case ....to be honest with you, were I a member of the jury, I KNOW I would not be good for the Defence. The fact that it was a lethal shooting, through the back, would not have been sufficiently handled by 'sorry it was an accident.' Furthermore, even if the guy had been taking smack to the cops wouldn't have washed away the fact that he was still dead. Also, the footage I saw was simply not good for the cops (maybe he was struggling and wriggling a milli-second before the camera was turned on, but what was shown when it WAS on was not good, again, for the cops). Finally, all those stories of jack-booted cops acting like they were above the constitution has also put a bad taste in my mouth, which is a dangerous thing when one is in a jury due to the tendency of it to add 'tinge' to a very important situation that requires one to be totally analytical and without bias. Now, if as a FReeper I may have issues, imagine the average juror (some of who may be really trying to get on the case to make a point).
Either way, this is a nightmare for the Defence. What this person is trying to do is to cast additional doubt, rustle the leaves, create so much dissonance that what was once 'merely' a very difficult case becomes impossible for the Defence.
To be honest, an amateur could take the Defence down at this juncture. Again, the case for them became a monster the moment that shooting was recorded on video. Everything after that is basically footnotes!
(The thing I wonder is what would have happened if the incident had not been recorded. I somehow doubt they would have said what happened ....maybe he would have been resisting arrest or running away).
You do not know whether the thug was cuffed when he was shot.
My understanding is the officer maintains that the thug was uncuffed and resisting up until the moment the officer fired. There has not yet been a trial. I think the responsible thing to do is to not declare things to be so when they have not yet been proven in court to be so.
I understand your approach, but I disagree with it. I know that OJ Simpson is a murderer, even though it wasn’t proven so in a court of law. I know what my eyes saw.
Did you “know” O.J. was a murderer before his trial? One has to get one’s information from somewhere. My point is that during the BART shooting trial one can expect all of the available evidence regarding whether the thug was handcuffed to be presented and analysed. Some peope who were there apparently say the thug was not cuffed. How can you possibly know right now from where you sit that they are wrong?
I'm going to guess that if the cops do not settle, that Al Sharpton will be around to agitate this into "Rodney King II"
An interesting development. But wait, I was assured (and flamed) right here that we knew absolutely everything there was to know from watching the high fidelity, high resolution cellphone videos?!
Not by me, you weren’t.
The thug was the one doing the shooting
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