OPD Thugs in the spotlight yet again

Yesterday, news broke that Oakland Police shot the cousin of Oscar Grant this weekend. 24 year-old Tony Jones was shot in the back by Oakland Police early Sunday morning. The cops claim he had a gun, but no charges have been filed yet against Jones four days after the incident.

For several hours, attorney Waukeen McCoy says he was denied the right to meet with his client at the hospital, going so far as to take a picture of the Oakland officer he says refused entry after Jones requested to see his attorney.
"We believe what happened is that the Oakland Police Department is hiding the fact that they shot him in his back while he was retreating from them," said McCoy.
-ABC7/KGO

If that wasn’t bad enough, yesterday’s hot-off-the-presses issue of the East Bay Express contained another story that claims to have identified the Oakland Police Officer who both shot Iraq War Veteran Scott Olsen during an Occupy Oakland Protest back in October, and then threw a grenade at the group of people who came to Olsen’s aid.

An extensive review of video footage and Oakland Police Department records by this reporter indicates that Robert Roche, an acting sergeant in the Oakland Police Department and member of OPD's "Tango Teams," threw the flash-bang at Olsen and his rescuers. It's also not the first time that Roche's actions have come under scrutiny. Police records show that Roche had previously killed three people in the line of duty.

In one clip of footage shot on October 25 by KTVU, the camera zooms in on a helmeted, gas-mask wearing officer in OPD insignia pointing a shotgun at the crowd. Olsen's inert body is also visible in front of the barriers. Another video clip shows the same officer training his shotgun on the crowd, lowering the firearm as a crowd gathers around Olsen, and stepping back behind a line of San Francisco sheriff's deputies on the barricade line. A grenade is then tossed at Olsen's body as rescuers arrive.
According to former San Francisco Sheriff Mike Hennessey and Sergeant Kara Apple, a Palo Alto Police spokeswoman, officers from neither agency were equipped with less-than-lethal shotguns or flash-bang grenades that night. A list of OPD crowd-control munitions published by Al Jazeera last year includes the Remington .357 shotgun and two types of CS or pepper spray-loaded blast grenades.
Two stripes and a star, OPD's insignia for acting sergeants, are visible on the officer's left sleeve. In both clips, the officer is holding his shotgun with his right hand on the trigger, his helmet visor is up and the numbers "35" are visible on his helmet. According to an OPD roster of the three-digit helmet numbers assigned to individual officers and the personnel detail for October 25, Officer Robert Roche is the only one with a helmet number beginning with "35" who was assigned to a Tango Team that night. Roche's helmet number that night was "357," according to OPD records.
Three attorneys who reviewed the two clips mentioned above concur that the shotgun-wielding officer is the same in both clips.
-East Bay Express

Police Chief Howard Jordan claimed that no Oakland Officers had grenade launchers nor grenades that night.
That was clearly yet another lie from these habitual liars..

Oakland still ridin'

US District Judge Thelton Henderson, who last year threatened OPD with a federal takeover, has ordered the city of Oakland to address its noncompliance with 5 provisions of the historic 2003 Riders settlement.

* The rehiring in March of Officer Hector Jimenez, who was fired after he shot and killed two unarmed suspects within seven months of each other in 2007 and 2008, including a man shot in the back. Jimenez and his attorney fought the firing, and an arbitrator sided with him against the city, forcing the department to return Jimenez to work under the rules of its contract with the police union. He is currently assigned to maintaining the fleet of police vehicles and keeping in-car computers up to date.

* July's "Operation Summer Tune-Up," a four-day crime prevention effort in which police issued 28 parole violations, made 17 arrests and recovered seven guns. Henderson is likely concerned about the connotations of the term "tune-up," widely used as a euphemism for the beating of suspects by police.

* The finding by the internal affairs division that accusations of illegal public strip searches of suspects by police were unfounded, despite a federal judge agreeing with the case made by at least two suspects to whom she awarded more than $100,000 each.

* A special report in August by the federal monitoring team, charged with tracking the OPD's progress in the reforms, which found that in 28 percent of the instances when Oakland officers draw their guns and point them at someone, the person has demonstrated no threat to anyone. In some cases, the monitors said, the person wasn't even a suspect in a crime.

* The process by which the department hires outsiders to stand on boards that evaluate police use-of-force incidents. The details of this issue remained unclear Wednesday.
-Inside Bay Area

I am Troy Davis

OPD wishes somebody would

A recent study by Robert Washaw has found that Oakland police officers drew their guns and pointed them at individuals who did not present a threat 28 percent of the time.
Warshaw is the federal monitor assigned to oversee the Oakland Police Department in the wake of the Riders federal corruption case. He looked at reports of 80 incidents in which 215 officers had drawn their guns between Jan. 1 and March this year.

Officers are escalating their use of force with no information that supports their belief a person is armed, using a tactic that could quickly prove deadly while bypassing less dangerous methods, such as drawing a stun gun or using a hands-on technique.

"In a few instances," Warshaw wrote, "it seemed that the only offense that a subject 'committed' was running from the police. While it is reasonable to assume that someone may be running because (he or she) is wanted or guilty of an offense, running is not, in and of itself, against the law; and it does not serve as justification for pointing a firearm."
-Inside Bay Area

And right on cue, Oakland Police shot an unarmed homeless man last night in el Fruitvale.

Former BART Officer Contradicts Previous Testimony

Former BART Cop Marysol Domenici, one of the first officers to arrive on the scene at the Fruitvale BART station where Oscar Grant was shot in the back while lying face down on the ground with another BART Cop's knee on the back of his neck, took the stand yesterday in Los Angeles. Domenici proceeded to discredit herself by giving statements that contradicted her previous testimony as well as the videotape evidence from that New Year's Morning in 2009.
In previous court testimony given in Alameda County, Domenici depicted a 'chaotic' scene where 50 people "confronted" her on the platform in a threatening manner as soon as she arrived on the scene. She repeated similar testimony yesterday in Los Angeles:

"I saw people on the train and people on the platform," she said.

"I remember people on the train calling me lady cop, and they were singing the lady cop song as I ran by."

Stein then showed a videotape recorded by a platform security camera that showed Domenici running down an empty platform with no passengers exiting the train.

Asked about the 50 people she saw, Domenici said they could not be seen on the video.

Throughout his questioning, as Stein showed videos from different angles, he repeatedly asked Domenici to point out the 50 people she had just described as being on the platform threatening her.

She never could, and at one point she said, "When I said the platform, to me the train is an extension of the platform."
-Oakland Tribune

During pre-trial proceedings in Alameda County, her depiction of a dangerous, threatening, and chaotic situation was also discredited by video footage, so it's a little odd that she would repeat the same lies under oath again. In general, she did portay herself as a witness with serious credibility issues:

Each time she was questioned, Domenici gave rambling answers justifying her reactions, sparking several requests by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert Perry for her to limit her answers to the question asked.

"Listen carefully to his questions," Perry said at one point.

"Try to focus on the questions that are asked," the judge said later.
-Oakland Tribune

Worse still she completely blew up a defense contention that Grant had touched her on the forearm:

Domenici said she does not remember that Grant ever touched her but said she was told by her attorney that a video shows he did.

When shown the video, Domenici said she could not clearly see Grant touching her.

"I don't remember Grant grabbing my arm," she said.
-Oakland Tribune

Mehserle's attorneys have attempted to justify Grant's murder by painting a picture of a near-riot taking place around the BART Officers as they arrested Grant and several other young men. The defense contends that the chaotic scene confused Officer Mehserle, who mistakenly drew his pistol instead of his taser. However, videotape footage, as well as Domenici's testimony prove otherwise:

"My first reaction was to look at the officers' faces because I didn't know who got shot," she said. "I just heard people saying, 'He got shot; he got shot.'"

Asked if that prompted her to take out her gun for safety, Domenici said it did not.

"Nobody had their guns out, none of the other officers," she said.

-Oakland Tribune

Clearly, none of the officers on the scene felt physically threatened enough to unholster their firearms. One officer, Anthony Pirone, who was fired along with Domenici, even punched Grant in the head minutes before Mehserle killed him. Yet the passengers on the train stayed on the train, and did not in any way appear to pose a physical threat to any of the officers. Even Grant himself, who was face-down on the platform, with Pirone's knee on the back of his neck, did not pose ANY physical threat.

So the real question is, did Mehserle murder Grant because of something Grant said, or is Mehserle really so incompetent that he forgot A) that it was New Year's (and therefore he should have known that he was getting paid overtime to deal with drunken revelers), and B) the difference between a taser and a handgun?
Incompetence like that is unacceptable, and should carry the same weight as a murder charge, especially in light of the fact that Mehserle was paid a lot of money to know the difference, and especially in light of the fact that Grant used his sister's cell phone to take a picture of Mehserle pointing a taser at him (which proves that he knew the difference between the two weapons) minutes prior to his getting assaulted/getting murdered.