Note: This is an extremely disturbing video from KTVU TV showing a man who seems to be in clear police control being shot to death by BART police. It saddens me that this young man lost his life. Very troubling. - Thomas Hawk from Bookmarklet

Insane actions by the policeman - barl0w

This is a great benefit of having so many camera-equipped devices. Instances of excessive police brutality (and general bad judgement) like this can be documented instantly so that nobody can deny that they occurred. - David Wilson

Absolutely horrible. - Ruchira S. Datta

David, I completely agree. It's also why we should take it so seriously when the police try to pressure photographers not to shoot them or scenes that they are involved with. I don't know why this cop shot the man in question. There seems to be no reason for it and the only thing I can think of is that he made some sort of tragic mistake. But these videos will make whatever happened hard to cover up after the fact. - Thomas Hawk

That's utterly sickening and despicable. Words cannot express my disgust for the cowardly officer who fired instead of using handcuffs. Quite frankly, I'm not sure what they had an issue with in the first place. - Sally Church

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin... From SF Chronicle on the incident. - Thomas Hawk

ugh. the guy who was killed had a four year old daughter. It just goes from bad to worse. - Thomas Hawk

That police officer murdered that man ... plain and simple. I hope the family wins the $25 Million Legal suit. - Brandon

Agreed with Brandon, that was a murder. Cop or otherwise. Sickening. - Matt Harwood

That is one of the more disturbing things I've ever seen. There's no way to explain it as an "accident." Why do you need to pull a gun on a guy who is lying face down? - Kevin Pedraja

Also disturbing is the number of comments on the SFGate article that basically say that the man deserved to die because he had been in trouble with the law before, or because his economic contribution to society was not great, or because he didn't behave politely with the police. - Robin Barooah

It could just be manslaughter because it doesn't seem intentional, or at least not premeditated. - Gabe

@Gabe ... The use of a deadly weapon when used in the act of killing someone ... is commonly referred to as "intent." Also, Second-Degree Murder is a killing with "intent" but that is not premeditated. - Brandon

Brandon: if I'm cleaning my gun and it discharges, killing you, I didn't just murder you. Likewise, if he didn't mean to pull the trigger, it's not murder. If he meant to pull the trigger and just didn't mean to kill the victim, it is murder. - Gabe

Ok Gabe I know the road you want to go down and I'm not going to take you there. I'm sure you can argue hypotheticals with your nepotites elsewhere. - Brandon

Brandon, I don't have a road (or nepotites, whatever those are). I'm just saying that all deaths by handguns are not necessarily murders. I'm pretty sure murder requires malice aforethought in California, and I couldn't tell from the video which it was. - Gabe

I would almost guarantee you the BART office will testify that he had never been in a similar situation in his two years on the force, had insufficient training, and in the confusion thought he was drawing and firing his taser. - Ken Sheppardson

I just hope we don't end up with riots over this like we did with Rodney King. The video looks pretty bad and even if it was some sort of unintentional terrible and tragic mistake, I'm not sure we've seen the end of what this video may bring. - Thomas Hawk

@Ken Yes of course they'll say that and insist it was provocation so that if anything he gets sentenced to a lesser crime. If any of you have fired a pistol before you know what the recoil feels like. If he didn't intend to fire the pistol you would see is arm flail upwards... that didn't happen ... it was a firm & fatal shot. - Brandon

Brandon: All I can really says is it never fails to amaze me how anxious people are to draw legal conclusions in cases like this given how hard they work to get out of jury duty. I've fired a handgun before. Have participated in competitive combat shoots, in fact, but I don't feel qualified to judge intent from the lack of visible recoil in a cell phone video. You happen to know what caliber the officer was carrying, or the size of the load? - Ken Sheppardson

Of course Ken this is FriendFeed ... no one here expects you to assume anything. We have our own opinions. We're discussing our opinions. And no I do not know what the standard carry is for that department. Could be a Glock ... S&S ... who knows. Anyways, this is a post by our friend Thomas here and we're discussing it. You even stated an opinion in your first post... "I would almost guarantee you the BART office will testify" ... I don't see how that's any different from me posting my opinions. - Brandon

Brandon: I never said you shouldn't post your opinions. Please don't take the fact that I'm speculating RE what defense the officer might offer as a conclusion on my part about his degree of guilt. It's disturbing video, for sure, and I suspect his attorney's will ask for a change of venue because of it's distribution. I'd want to hear a little more context/evidence before I rendered a verdict. - Ken Sheppardson

"If you ever get arrested, you understand what they think of niggers. They just shoot niggers 'accidentally' all the time. And you can't shoot a nigger accidentally *that* much. [imitating Cop voice] 'My gun just fell out... just went crazy, shot him six times.' [laughter] [applause]" - Karim

"Right? No, but they get in court, and they get away with 'justifiable homicide,' and all that old shit. And the judge be talkin' 'bout, [imitating Judge voice] 'Yes, I quite understand it was an accident, even though the colored fellow was *blind*...'" -- Richard Pryor, "The Law" - Karim

"Authorities said 105 people had been arrested in the protest over the fatal New Years Day shooting of Oscar Grant III after a splitter group broke off from the peaceful march and began trashing store fronts, breaking windows, setting fires and damaging at least one patrol car and several other vehicles." - KTVU http://bit.ly/ri5k - Ken Sheppardson