Today's TASER Travesty

Early on January 1, Oscar Grant III was shot and killed at the Fruitvale Bay Area Rapid Transit system station by BART police officer Johannes Mehserle. Grant was unarmed and was allegedly resisting arrest at the time by as many as FIVE officers.

Video taken by cell phones of witnesses is not very clear, but the one below shows at least two other officers backing away from Grant at :34 before Mehserle draws and fires at him.



Most theories about what happened in this incident consider the scenario in which the officer's handgun was mistakenly drawn instead of his TASER as the likeliest reason for the tragic outcome. The only other alternative would seem be a deliberate execution on Mehserle's part, and the chance of that being the case would appear to be extremely remote, given the public nature of the arrest attempt.

Mehserle has submitted his resignation to the department, which this article confirms effectively ends any internal investigation of the incident by the force:

"BART officials said Mehserle was scheduled to meet with agency investigators on Wednesday, but did not show up. His attorney and union representative turned in the resignation letter."

This is only speculation, but that action probably wouldn't be taken by Mehserle if he had had a justified reason for shooting Grant.

This is a sad and tragic situation all around, if indeed the mistaken TASER theory mentioned above is proven accurate. We only mention the incident here to further highlight the folly of using a TASER as a pain compliance tool, instead of taking suspects such as Grant into custody by physical means, as one witness states was already being done:

"'One officer was kneeling over his neck and head, and another standing over him,' Burris said. 'He was not kicking, and one officer was pulling on his arm. The standing officer pulled out his weapon and, within moments, fired the gun into Mr. Grant's back.'"

One wonders why the officers didn't simply finish overpowering Grant, especially since three officers already had him on the ground and Grant apparently only weighed around 160 pounds.

Once again, we find ourselves being forced to stress that the TASER is designed to be a "less-than lethal" weapon, to be deployed in defense of self and others ONLY. It should not be used as a compliance tool to effect an easy arrest, in the same manner that beating a suspect with a baton for not placing his arms behind his back quickly enough would be tolerated.