According to a report from District Attorney Gascón's office, Charles Hill, the homeless man who was shot and killed by BART PD officers in July of last year, was not only "wobbly drunk" during the incident, but was also high on synthetic marijuana and methamphetamine at the time. In the report, forensic toxicologists from the Medical Examiner's office describe Hill as a chronic meth user who had so much of the drug in his system that it was rare for him to be alive in that condition to begin with. With all this new evidence the District Attorney has determined that Officer James Crowell, "acted lawfully in self-defense" when he fired his weapon on Hill. more ›

The family of Charles Hill, the "wobbly drunk" homeless man shot and killed by BART police last July has filed a civil suit against BART seeking monetary damages for the incident. According to the Examiner's report on the filing, Oakland attorney John Burris will be representing Hill's next of kin. Burris, anti-BART PD readers might remember, successfully secured nearly $3 million in damages for Oscar Grant's mother and daughter in the wrongful death case that followed the trial of BART police officer Johannes Mehserle. more ›

The transit agency's police force has finally made a move towards more officer accountability in the wake of the high-profile, fatal shootings of Charles Hill and Oscar Grant by BART Police officers. According to CBS5 and the Chronicle's Phil Matier, BART PD has launched a pilot program to give officers clip-on, ride-along cameras to permanently record future incidents. more ›

Last night BART put out a rider alert warning passengers, "Protests may disrupt service as early as Thursday, August 11th" (that'd be today). The protests - more demonstrations in response to the officer-involved shooting of Charles Hill on July 3rd - don't have a specific date and time, presumably to make a bigger impact on an unprepared system. That said, the agency wants you to be aware that these protests are likely to disrupt train service during commute periods in August. Consider yourselves advised! more ›

At a press conference this afternoon, BART Police released surveillance footage from the Civic Center BART station showing the July 3rd incident in which BART PD officers fired on and killed "wobbly drunk" Charles Hill. The footage, embedded below [Warning: could be graphic to some] is hard to make out and doesn't show one of the officers or the victim, but Bay City News has a detailed report from the press conference with BART PD Chief Kenton Rainey: more ›