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Johannes Mehserle, the ex-BART officer who shot and killed Oscar Grant on New Year's Day, pleaded not guilty yesterday to murder. During a "tense" hearing, Mehserle "entered court for about three minutes ... spoke only to say 'yes' three times, in response to questions from Judge Robert McGuiness about whether he waived his rights to a speedy trial," according to the Chronicle. He is currently being held without bail at Santa Rita Jail over in Dublin.
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Anybody know the correct pronunciation of "Johannes Mehserle"? I
yo-hahn'iss mez'zer-lee
ugh... this stuff is seriously starting to stress me out.
This is Involuntary Manslaughter at best. Unintentional killing of a person who was - A. suspected and possibly on videotape of starting a fight on public transit and - B. clearly struggling despite being in partial custody then shot due to basic negligence by an inexperienced officer does not allow for a conviction of murder.
Not guilty. Suspension of firearm license and no prison time served. Charging him with murder is completely retarded and pointless as he will be acquitted. If they went with Man 1 then he might serve a little bit of time for messing up.
There. Now go burn other people's shit, break some glass, kick in a few car doors, have yourselves a fucking riot and get an actual criminal record over some completely useless dead thug punk and another man's ruined life.
Amen.
So you're saying the gun jumped into his hand?
Who put bullets in my Taser?
Just another dead thug, huh, you mean black person right? just another dead black kid from the ghetto, who cares? Racism's over right, now that O's in the White House? Go choke on it.
murder: the unlawful killing of another human being with intent (or malice aforethought), characterized by deliberation or premeditation.
you're trying to tell me that a prosecution attorney is going to be able to prove that he intentionally, with 'aforethought', etc., killed oscar grant? rrrrrright. i suppose you have a bridge to sell me as well. if any of you seriously think that murder will be the verdict here, you have little understanding of what the word means in a legal sense.
oh winston, do regale us with your predictive skills. for your next trick please let us know what tomorrow night's lotto numbers are going to be.
what you don't seem to account for is that the charges (and intent) are calculated from the top. no premeditation? you'd (or he) better hope mehserle didn't "joke" about the crowd earlier in the night with a dispatcher or his fellow officers. OK, no smack-talk? then what put the gun into his hand? an intentional act. why did he do it? oh, maybe for intimidation. see, that can get you second-degree. not intimidation? then why were none of the other officers so concerned? oh, but maybe the hardened little thug was reaching for a shiv in his back pocket? mehserle's arrest warrant specifically noted that grant was under restraint. pretty hard for an apprehendee to pull a weapon while satisfying an official definition of restraint. oh, but mehserle was actually reaching for his taser? leaving alone the fact that the sig sauer .40cal he used weighs almost three pounds and a taser weighs seven ounces (and has lights, and is yellow, and requires a cartridge to be loaded), why did a restrained person need to be tased? I'm sure you can go even further than all this and provide a link to an image of mehserle wearing or holding a taser at all, since in five days of searching I have not been able to find one, nor has anybody been able to provide one.
from what i know (and I certainly welcome correction) manslaughter typically requires precautions not to kill when doing an intentional act like pulling a weapon. i'm not aware of "putting your finger on the trigger" to be a precaution against harm. see how intent can build up?
and to head off another argument I've seen, from what I've been able to find out "accidental discharge" is not a defense typically available to law enforcement, due to their training and the legal assumption that everything a cop does is assumed to be justified. that would obviate the "woopsy daisy" defense.
but really, educate me. i'm serious.
Werd.
I'm off to go smash some sh*% up.
"Unintentional killing of a person who was - A. suspected and possibly on videotape of starting a fight on public transit and - B. clearly struggling despite being in partial custody then shot due to basic negligence by an inexperienced officer does not allow for a conviction of murder."
if the subject was restrained (as reports say) then struggling or not its at least manslaughter.
your other point about what the suspect was doing on the train before his death is a red herring. Even if oscar grant had been raping six month old puppies it would have no bearing on findings of fact with respect to his shooting.
If they charged him with murder for publicity purposes and he gets off because they can't prove that extra distance between murder and manslaughter then we can probably kiss downtown Oakland goodbye. Though maybe the mob will take it all out on the DA instead if it turns out to clearly be manslaughter but not murder.
that's an impressive series of strawmen and red herrings. if only people put as much effort into facts as they do intricate doomsday scenarios.
My doomsday scenarios aren't that intricate.
And if the black guy shoots a white police officer is that Racism too?
We can never get past racism until people of color let it go and start taking responsibility for their actions.
This story is about a white guy taking responsibility for his actions.
um, i believe that, racist or not, if a black guy shoots a white cop he gets charged with it...
Um..hate to get you all angry but a guy killed a MAYOR of SAN FRANCISCO and A SUPERVISOR and got off with a few years in jail on an involuntary manslaughter charge, despite the fact he had all the intent of the world to kill some folks. So I wonder how much the liberal jury will hang this guy with. Probably not a lot.
Juries in this area just don't like convicting criminals. And they never give the death penalty. So for those who want this cop lynched, hate to say it but your liberal friends just won't get it up to send this guy to death row.
I'm not suggesting for a moment this is the "righteous" way, I'm just telling you, this is what happens. If you don't like it , for God's sake, stop letting actual criminals off with nothing so when we deal with this, we can can the guy if he actually is guilty after a trial.
The only people saying Mehserle should be lynched are the strawmen that advocates for lesser verdicts are ascribing to their perceived opponents. Hope that helps.