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Violent BART Tussle Caught on Tape
More controversy for BART police this weekend thanks to YouTube. A passenger caught this violent moment on tape Saturday, in which a man is dragged off the train and smashed into a window. But did he use excessive force on a mentally ill man? His family thinks so.
officer-smashes-man-into-bart-window
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maspring
Video cameras are everywhere. Cops have to assume that anything they do will get second-guessed.
Cuts both ways. Sometimes it will go in the cops favor and sometimes against.
Personally I hope the cop doesn't catch too much bad publicity for this. His actions seemed appropriate to me.
johnmcenroe
Appropriate? You cannot be serious. There's nothing appropriate about smashing a defendant's head against a glass wall. It's a clear-cut case of a cop using excessive violence.
What I find really troubling, and a bad omen for American society, is the reactions I read here: "the guy had it coming", "the glass is really old" or "he needed to be restrained"--are you people living in the 1500's or something? Or in the days of the Old Testament?
goffbum
Very appropriate john....if you review the tape before shooting you mouth off you will see suspect putting his fist through the glass.....unless of corse your freegin blind or a an idiot.....police have a dangerous job.....unless you are criminal yourself.........
johnmcenroe
(of course I meant "suspect" where I wrote "defendant")
FatFreddy
Cheap, Chinese made glass. I'd be suing the city for installing that cheap glass. That is NOT supposed to break like that. It's supposed to be safety glass.
KGBeast
The glass is really old. The city doesn't have the budget to redo the windows when they're supposed to. Oakland's outlook is bleak. Their police department doesn't even have the budget for a fingerprint lab.
billybob
that is some shoddy glass. that guy had it coming the cop was the one bleeding. Guy's gonna sue him and BART regardless - ridiculous
KGBeast
I don't think he meant to put his head through a window. I think he just misjudged the strength of the glass. The guy was acting crazy. The cop had to restrain him somehow. He just made a poor choice picking the window.
Onto his family complaining about excessive force: I'm sorry for jumping to conclusions, but on the surface, his family seem like opportunists who are trying to cash in on their sick family member's misfortune by suing the city. If he is mentally ill to the point of social dysfunction it's irresponsible of his caretakers to let him out alone like that. Now they're worried about his well being? After he gets his head put through a window by a state employee? Sorry but I'm skeptical.
laDivaG
I think you're right about the choice of wall.
It's too bad the clip doesn't show what happened before the train stopped and the BART officer got on. The guy certainly would have seemed threatening to me on the basis of what I saw there.
This situation certainly does shed a light on lots of tragedy in America. The mentally ill wandering in society without proper care, underfunded public facilities, underpaid government employees being forced to deal with violent situations without backup and the now ubiquitous amateur documentary filmmakers feeding us their cynical, clipped-up versions of events. All the while, people on all sides will be trying to make bank on the misery from any number of angles.
neroves1
So what, BART is to cheap to install shatter proof glass. "the family thinks so"?? Where were they when this guy was threatening the passengers on this train. Dismiss!
david222
Couldn't agree more.
laDivaG
Listen to the guy with the camera commenting at the end, obviously thrilled, "This is AWESOME; this is the best end to my day."
That anyone could be so overjoyed about someone else's misery and injury is pathetic, shameful and says more about American culture than anything else in the film, sadly.
connie47
That's how I see it, too.
bleedingheartmex
yes we are war mongering fastfood eating car driving soundbitten polluting racebaiting money hungry label wearing , man!!! etc. people suck but the crap cops put up with takes its toll they are as fallable as any body out there i do not want their job and the guy getting that on video is a deuche bag .the best end to my day is a female that comes a calling duh
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