I still say, only the Black Panthers ever dealt effectively with police brutality. And look what happened to them.

“Involuntary?” The sheer fact is that Johannes Mehserle voluntarily drew his weapon. 

The behavior of the Judge and his instructions must be called into question.

1) An all white jury in this trial establishes unfair and unacceptably limiting perspectives to be able to clearly access and evaluate the case adequately.

2) The abusive racist behavior of the Officers at the scene of the shooting was not included nor is it likely to be grasped by an all white jury.

3) The willingness to consider “accidental” behavior is altered entirely when considering when applying the term to anyone who puts a gun in their hand.  With the exception of an ignorant child this implies a vastly different context from other occasions that have tragic lethal consequence.  The use of a sidearm in itself completely changes the meaning and context of the word “unintended”.

4) Mehserle was a trained professional, licensed to carry a weapon.  Because of his training and office he must be held to a higher standard of responsibility to the public.  Given that office, “Oops” is no excuse. 

5) The obvious fact that a handgun is a lethal weapon, with a “safety” lock that must be disengaged to make the weapon operational, weighs heavily against the use of the terms “unintentional” or “inadvertent” in the assessment of the shooting.  The safety lock introduces another level of conscious responsibility into police behavior even if it otherwise could be considered inadvertent.

Therefore the options offered by the Judge were insensibly restrictive to the Jury.  They did not take into account any of these crucial mitigating circumstances that in their exclusion imply unacceptable bias.

I hope this miscarriage of justice will be appealed.

SOTEXGUY: From what I saw of the video, the victim was lying face-down between the cops feet with the cop standing over top of him. The cop then just reached for his gun, didn’t even look at it, pointed and fired.

The victim wasn’t posing any type of threat at all. He was talking, but not moving. The cop had no reason to even be using a taser on the guy.

This cop should’ve gotten a much harsher penalty. At least ten years. If he had been anything other than a police officer, he would. If he ever does any jail time, I expect he will probably be killed, so I’m betting he gets probation.

Anyone with real experience of law enforcement could not label them all as ‘intelligent’ or middle class.. Otherwise I am in agreement with the outspoken Mr. Ellis on this one..

What Law Enforcement (and the Justice department) has become is a powerful Cartel or Family.. ostensibly (and in fact occasionally) serving the public and our interests.. Yet cases like this illustrate that they exist in a more rarefied climate, not held to the same moral, ethical or legal standards as are average (middle class) Americans.

Their lives and well-being are something above and beyond that of the masses.. that they may be in some danger is always to be met with immediate and lethal force.. when they die or are injured it is something beyond the crises experienced by Americans not of their fraternity.. watch the news if you doubt all this.

It seems the dead man made two mistakes.. being of color is one.. but the most egregious error was not completely submitting to the authorities.. on the streets that is a potentially capital offense.. the punishment for which is to be carried out without any interference from the judicial branch!

When this reality becomes formally encoded in our laws (as I expect could well happen soon) it’s the end of our free society..

Adios!

We have too many police.

Considering the circumstances, i’m still wondering why the officer was reaching for his “taser” and not for his handcuffs;  the victums was, obviously, posing no threat.

Our children needn’t make any excuses for us because Americans will never take responsibility for their violent nation. “Why don’t those black people just get over slavery!” As though the supposed end of slavery was a gate to liberty and opportunity. “We fought in Viet Nam to protect our freedoms!” Huh? “We do so much for countries all over the world and they just don’t ‘preciate it!” Odd, how people don’t appreciate being murdered and having their resources stolen.

So, no, I don’t expect future generations will have to make excuses.

As if there was any doubt as to who and what the police  
protect (and who protects them), and who is getting
“served”.
We who are alive today, seeing the end of our Republic,
what excuses will our children make for us?  That we
didn’t see it because it didn’t speak German or
brandish swastikas?