Thanks for the reply.

You’re calling people “pro-thug” for saying that Grant shouldn’t have been killed

A theme I keep repeating in this thread is the difference between technical (we may call it procedural) prohibitions (the malum prohibitum) and moral ones (malum in se). As I have mentioned before, Mr. Grant’s death may well have been malum prohibitum. I have never called anyone “pro-thug” for saying that. Indeed, though I am not a lawyer, I would not be surprised by that outcome.

However, was the shooting of an uncooperative detainee who was (as the officer reasonablly suspected) recently engaged in honor-basd pack violence malum in se? I don’t think so.

As I said in the comment you refered to: “I do not get this pro-thug/pro-Grant moral indignation” That seems to be the pro-thug leep: to be outraged that violence was used to subude violence.(as opposed to the dry, technicale evaluation that an inappropriate level of violence was used on the part of the police for achieving their objectives).

The rest of the paragraph strikes me as confused, both in conflating the above concepts, as well as conflating a reesponse to ongoing violence (the apaprent honor-based pack violence on the BART) with the operation of law-courts with respect to economic crimes.

Sometimes the fact that zero people agree with you can be an indication that you’re dead wrong.

This may be the the most specious use of argumentum ad populum I’ve encountered on this blog.

Did you not realize it, or where you wasting my time for your emotional venting?

Either way, cease trolling.

The “victim” is not Mehserle. As far as we know, Grant committed no crime.

“As if personal responsibility is no longer required.”

I agree with Eddie… Mehserle should be held fully responsible for his actions, just as Grant was held responsible for his (he did his time).

“It is sad that so few public voices have taken the opportunity to publicly criticize Oscar Grant”

Sometimes the fact that zero people agree with you can be an indication that you’re dead wrong.

Thanks for the comments.

Fighting crime has nothing to do with shooting a handcuffed and actively restrained (knee in the back) suspect.

Of course errors in fighting crime have to do with the process of fighting crime.

Errors, and how they are managed, are unavoidable parts of any process.

There is the technical procedure for adjudicating the errors in this case, which will go through the law courts. This is as dry and boring, to me, as it should be: a system at work.

There is a moral outrage here, which is the actions’ of the pack of criminals which caused this whole mess.

I don’t get those who save their outrage for the instigator.

The good news for police departments everywhere is that the race-baiters always overplay their hand (usually via a riot or increased crime b/c of the retardant effect they have on police) and end up losing.

What makes you think this?

You say “always,” so I assume you mean that without exception they have experienced continuous and severe set-backs.

It strikes me that many of successful poliical entrepreneurs who successfullly extract “rents” from a system, often for their entire careers.

Thugs are taken care of in almost every city to an extent, much the same way sanitation workers take out the trash.

I assume if we had the same death-toll for poor trash collection that we did from thugs, it would be a national crisis.

The problem is the failed society, culture and government policy platform that incubates such dreadful members of society. As if personal responsibility is no longer required.

Truly.

It is sad that so few public voices have taken the opportunity to publicly criticize Oscar Grant, and those like him, who live so lives so violent and criminal that they lead to problems such as this case.

Instead, many are jumping on the bandwagon of blaming the victim, using an error in the law-enforcement process to criticize an officer as incompetent, poorly trained, etc., when to the extent this case is not dry, it is because of the criminal actions of Mr. Grant.

I notice Adrian has not bothered to respond, by the way.

“Basing your analyst on avoiding your pet peeves is going to get you into trouble.”

Indeed. I should have said “my larger concern”. Thugs are taken care of in almost every city to an extent, much the same way sanitation workers take out the trash. The problem is the failed society, culture and government policy platform that incubates such dreadful members of society. As if personal responsibility is no longer required.

“Prosecturs charge up and plea down. ”

Indeed. I would be surprised if this one did though, given the thuggish tendencies of some in the community in response and the potentially dicey political situation it would put his re-election hopes. The use of security footage and cell phone cameras add an element unusual to most cases in such plea situations, though admittedly, we live in an age where a man can be on video peeing on a teenage girl and be found not guilty of sex crime charges.

Now I will agree completely with the fiasco in Cincinnati (The Timothy Thomas shooting) where an exceptional cop’s career was destroyed by racial nonsense and rioting by criminal elements in the city.

I would disagree with the unidentified officer for a variety of reasons. Cities with records and problems as bad, if not worse than Cincinnati, have dealt successfully with this in the past and continue to do so. They re-emphasized training, good judgment and following established procedure. Look at how skillfully NYC, Philadelphia and LA have handled similar problems. Now if that police chief in Cincinnati felt hamstrung by the race-baiters, he might as well resign his post and let new leadership come in that can handle the situation.

The good news for police departments everywhere is that the race-baiters always overplay their hand (usually via a riot or increased crime b/c of the retardant effect they have on police) and end up losing.

And I think, when you analyze it under the law, “technically” or however you want to put it, it is clear a civil rights violation of oscar grant occurred.

I’m not a lawyer with experience of this sort of case, so I am not clear on the matter. It may well be clear to those who practice in the area.

That said, whether or not the officer’s actions were malum prohibitum does not concern me, as that is a technical matter.

A disproportionate response (especially one involving deadly force) is always viewed as outrageous (almost by definition). The only way one can make such a response non-outrageous is to either provide additional facts wherein the response is no longer clearly disproportionate, or to do away with the notion of proportionality as a moral precept altogether (like what a tyrant would do)

This whole paragraph seems to be going nowhere, but I’ll just point out that the last parenthetical thought is an example of the genetic fallacy.

The first passage in the paragraph “almost” is tautological as well, but as I don’t understand your point in the paragraph as a whole, I don’t know what would be gained by criticizing it.

Beyond that though, the law itself proposes a sense of morality.

So you believe that all things that are laum prohibitum are malum in se?

Or is it that your concern is exclusively with malum in se? Becasue if thi is true, then you are exclusively concerned with the technical matters of the case, and (as I said before) those do not interest me here.

Mark in Texas,

Well said.

When we punish people for taking risks, we reduce those behaviors.

When fighting crime is seen as risky, less officers will fight crime.

I get how out of COIN-like concerns it may be useful to throw a public servant under the bus in order to prevent another riot. Thugs can kill people and break things, and it may be easier just to lynch an officer who errored. Still, I don’t get the cheerleading of that process.

That is a policy that also has costs.

Although I can’t find it right now, I recall reading an article about how crime in Cinncinatti was way up and the economy was way down in the aftermath of a circus trial of a policeman who shot an unarmed black youth who was running away from him.

The article contained a quote from an unidentified Cinncinatti policeman who said that if he did his job aggressively he would be pulling over a lot more young black men. Some of them would resist violently and they might injure or kill him. He might injure or kill the people he was trying to apprehend. If that happened, there was a good chance that he would go to trial. In a trial there was a good chance that he would have to sell his house and empty his bank account to pay a lawyer. If the trial went the wrong way he might lose his pension and he might even go to jail.

None of those bad things would happen if he spent his shift parked behind an abandoned warehouse sleeping in his squad car.

A disproportionate response (especially one involving deadly force) is always viewed as outrageous (almost by definition). The only way one can make such a response non-outrageous is to either provide additional facts wherein the response is no longer clearly disproportionate, or to do away with the notion of proportionality as a moral precept altogether (like what a tyrant would do).

Beyond that though, the law itself proposes a sense of morality. People should be rightly offended, and outraged, when another person’s civil rights are taken away. Even if the person’s whose rights are taken away is a “thug”. The fact that he was a “thug” goes to damages, not to liability (and culpability).

Welcome to the conversation!

I’ve used the word “technical” four times in this thread. The mechanism of the law is of course a technical matter, and you present the legal, technical context for the murder charge.

My interest here (as in my earlier posts on torture [1]) is not a technical one (the execution of the law as it relates to this case; the efficacy of torture as an information-gathering device) but a moral one (why is the moral outrage being directed to the police officer, and not the criminal, who began the confrontation?).

Eddie,

Yet, my greater pet peev

Basing your analyst on avoiding your pet peeves is going to get you into trouble.

I get the concern for the technical execution of the law enforcement function, but allowing a pet peeve to drive to focus your anger on a police officer, as opposed to the thug of the sort whose actiosn requireda police officer on the scene, seems backwards.

Murder seems a bit much but given this DA isn’t Nifong, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt,

Prosecturs charge up and plea down.

I don’t know about this case, but most of the time I doubt that prosecutors take their own charges seriously.

A prosecutor in Nebraska recently announced he would cease doing this, and only charge people with crimes he believed he could get a conviction on. The response with bewilderment and incredulity. [2]

[1] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2007/07/21/torture-reloaded.html
[2] http://www.beatricedailysun.com/articles/2009/01/07/news/local/doc49622745be48c146135784.txt

The claim for violations of 1983 would be use of excessive / deadly force. I do not know what additional rights, if any, the constitution of California gives, but 1983 jurisprudence sets the floor for civil rights. No state actor can go below that floor, and some state actors (depending on the state’s constitution) may not be able to go that low.

To prevail on a claim of excessive force (violation of 4th amend, typically) the plaintiff must show that the officer’s conduct violates the standards of objective reasonableness in the profession when viewed through the lens of Tennesse v. Garner (471 U.S. 1) and Graham v. Connor (490 U.S. 386).

Reasonable police officers know that Garner sets forth standards for use of deadly force. I am sure we will not argue over whether pulling a loaded gun out and firing into the back of a suspect at close range is deadly force or not. Under Garner, officers are trained that, where an officer has probable cause to believe a suspect poses a threat of serious physical harm to the officer or another person (as when a suspect threatens to use a deadly weapon against an officer or another), the use of deadly force is justified.

So first Q: was their probable cause to believe Grant posed a threat of serious physical harm to the officer or another?

Graham is taught to officers as well, and gives them criteria for evaluating reasonableness in the use of force. These factors are: (1) severity of the crime; (2) immediate threat to safety of self and others; and (3) whether subject is actively resisting or fleeing. Additional considerations include: (a) extent of injuries sufferd, (b) need for application of force, (c) relationship between need for force and amount of force used, and (d) efforts made to temper severity of force used.

This is the Garner / Graham prism through which we evalute claims of EF. Based strictly on the news accounts and videos, how would you evaluate the issue? We’ll get to murder charges later.