Saturday, January 10, 2009



An execution

We know US police are trigger happy thugs. But this incident really takes the cake:

The police chief for BART, Gary Gee, said that transit police detectives were still compiling clues in the shooting, which occurred after Mr. Grant and a group of friends were removed from an eastbound train in the wake of a fight among two groups leaving a New Year’s Eve celebration in San Francisco.

At least four cell phone cameras held by passengers on the train idling next to the platform captured images of Mr. Grant lying face down when Transit Officer Johannes Mehserle, 27, pulls his gun and fires a single shot. Mr. Mehserle looks up at another officer, and then handcuffs Mr. Grant.

Grant died seven hours later in hospital. Mehserle has not been arrested, let alone charged, despite the shooting occuring in front of dozens of witnesses and being captured on video. But that, I guess, is America: where police can kill a man in cold blood, and then act as if nothing had happened.