Another civil rights debacle: criminal morons provoke police, get accidentally shot

Grant was a butcher at Farmer Joe's Marketplace in Oakland's Dimond district, family members said. They said he loved to play basketball and video games and hang out with friends. He had been in some trouble, they said, but was doing better in recent months in an effort to be a good father.

According to sources, Grant had a prison record. Details were unavailable Sunday.

A source also revealed Sunday that BART police had been on edge before Grant's shooting because two guns had been recovered in separate incidents along the rail line in the hour before the shooting.

In one of the incidents, a teenage boy with a semiautomatic pistol had fled from police and jumped off the West Oakland Station platform, breaking several bones while landing. In another, the source said, a revolver was recovered after a fight at the Embarcadero Station in San Francisco.

The officer who shot Grant appears to try to put cuffs on him before drawing his weapon and firing. In the video, Grant appears to struggle with the officers, though it is unclear exactly what he was doing.

BART officials declined to say whether the officer was carrying a Taser - a device that sends out two electrical probes and can incapacitate its target - when he shot Grant. The agency uses Tasers but does not have enough of the expensive devices to give one to every officer.

"It is, without a doubt, the most unconscionable shooting I have ever seen," said Burris, who has won several damage awards against Bay Area police departments and worked on Rodney King's civil suit against the city of Los Angeles. "A price has to be paid. Accountability has to occur."

SFG

I've respun this article to show context. Criminal moron engages in stupid behavior while others are engaging in stupid behavior, putting under-equipped officers on edge, and an accident happens. Community screams about racism when they really want money.