6 comments to “FYI”

1. Absolutely horrendous. What little I’ve read says the officer meant to tazer him, but took out the wrong weapon. And that was after they wailed on him for no good reason. Stuff like this gives people plenty of reason to be angry. I hope nothing worse results from this.

        by greyhoundbus January 7th, 2009 at 12:54 --reply
   

2. If you’re so stupid that you can’t tell the difference between a gun and a taser, you’re too dumb to be allowed near anything more dangerous than string.

   I hope they throw the book at him at least.

        by david brothers January 7th, 2009 at 13:36 --reply
   

3. You know, people in other countries riot over this sort of garbage, but here it’s barely a two-minute story.

        by Dane January 7th, 2009 at 14:42 --reply
   

4. “What little I’ve read says the officer meant to tazer him, but took out the wrong weapon.”
   The idea that a trained police officer cannot tell the difference is ludicrous. The fact that the incident is receiving so little attention*, well, that’s utterly terrifying.

   *maybe it’ll blow up some with the prevalence of citizen surveillance, but the reports of Transit Authority confiscating recording devices immediatley afterward fills me with dread.

        by wyrm January 7th, 2009 at 20:02 --reply
   

5. I don’t think the weapon confusion theory is that far-fetched to be honest. I can’t think of another reason why he’d take out a weapon and fire it at point-blank range in the back of a guy lying on the ground in handcuffs. There was no reason to *threaten* the Grant with a gun, because Grant couldn’t see it in the position he was in, so it’s unlikely the officer pulled it out knowing it was a gun and then accidentally fired. The most likely scenario is he was trained enough to use both a gun and a taser that they both felt comfortable in his hands, but couldn’t keep his cool under pressure, got confused, pulled out the gun thinking it was his taser, and fired.

   He knew he was being watched by a subway-load of people (he was getting yelled at after all). I find it hard to believe he would think of shooting someone in cold blood in front of everybody. Even if he was the most murderous, racist SOB in the police force, even bad people try to remain inconspicuously bad.

   However, I agree that he should never have been allowed to touch either weapon. He obviously didn’t have what it takes to do the job. More than that, there were multiple things going on wrong even before he took out the gun. Something is seriously wrong with the way they were handling the guy. I hope the police force in that area gets a revamp and Grant’s family gets a big settlement, even if it doesn’t quite make up for what happened.

   @Dane: Well, they rioted, so it looks like it’s a little more than a two-minute story now. I think it will stick around for a bit.

        by greyhoundbus January 8th, 2009 at 09:41 --reply
   

6. @greyhoundbus: Mistaking the gun for a taser sounds believable to me except for one very important question… why the hell didn’t he have the safety on?

   I’ll admit I don’t know much about either weapon, but I’m pretty sure his gun should have had one and I’ve never heard of a taser having one.

        by Linedwell January 10th, 2009 at 03:36 --reply