BART Cop Smashes Drunk Dude's Head Through Glass
Somebody caught this arrest on video Saturday night: a very obnoxious drunk guy starts screaming and generally making a nuisance of himself -- all while brown-bagging it -- as the train is stopped at West Oakland Station. A BART police officer quickly moves in and pulls the guy off the train, and pushes him across the platform where (it appears) his head ends up going through one of the glass barriers on the other side. While some might cheer this valiant effort to remove a drunk asshole from a train, others are raising questions about the officer's excessive use of force.
It is not entirely clear from the video what causes the glass to smash, but having learned their lesson about public opinion and YouTube with the Oscar Grant/Johannes Mehserle debacle, BART was quick to respond in having a news conference, launching an investigation, and getting the video taken down. It has, naturally, cropped again.
The drunk dude in question is 37-year-old Michael Gibson, who after being treated for his wounds was moved to Santa Rita jail in Dublin. The BART officer has not been identified.
