Officer Testifies In BART Shooting - "Meant to use his stun gun"

Jun 17, 2010

LOS ANGELES -- A former Bay Area transit police officer on Thursday had trouble remembering key details of the events leading up to the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man by a fellow officer on an Oakland train platform.

Marysol Domenici, who was fired in March from Bay Area Rapid Transit, testified that when she heard the gunshot - she described sounding like "a firework" go off - she wasn't sure who may have been injured.

By the reaction of officers, "I knew it wasn't one of us," Domenici said. "No one had their guns out."

Domenici was the first officer who responded to the New Year's Day 2009 shooting and was called to testify at the trial of Johannes Mehserle, who is white and has pleaded not guilty to killing Oscar Grant, 22.

On direct examination by Deputy District Attorney Dave Stein, Domenici couldn't recall information she provided at a preliminary hearing last year. Stein read portions of her previous testimony in which she said she heard Grant and his friends tell her and other officers they were scared of being shot with a Taser stun gun.

"I don't remember them saying the tasing part, but I do remember them cooperating," Domenici said.

Mehserle's attorney has said his client meant to use his stun gun instead of his .40-caliber weapon. Stein has argued that Mehserle, 28, intended to shoot Grant and used his weapon because officers were losing control of the situation.

Domenici said she also didn't remember Grant grabbing her arm minutes before he was shot, but she said a video taken by a bystander showed it. Stein played the tape in court and the grainy resolution couldn't confirm Domenici's account.

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Seattle Office Punches Teenage Girl Jaywalking Suspect In Face

SEATTLE (AP) — Seattle police say they'll review police tactics and training after an officer was shown on video punching a young woman in the face.

Acting deputy police chief Nick Metz said Tuesday that the department's civilian-led Office of Professional Accountability is investigating the 39-year-old officer's actions.

Officer Ian P. Walsh was trying to cite several people for jaywalking just before Monday's incident, which was captured on cell phone video.

Metz says two of the women who were stopped bear much of the responsibility for not cooperating and resisting arrest.

Seattle Urban League CEO James Kelly says the punch was an overreaction that brought to mind a video taken April 17 of two Seattle officers seen kicking a Hispanic suspect.

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Video Shows Police Fired Into Detroit Home

 

Attorney: Reality show video contradicts police version of raid that left Detroit girl dead.

 

By COREY WILLIAMS Associated Press Writer
DETROIT May 17, 2010 (AP)


An attorney for the family of a 7-year-old girl slain during a weekend raid at their Detroit home says video footage contradicts the police department's version of events.

Geoffrey Fieger (FI-ger) said Monday that footage shot by the A&E crime-reality show "The First 48" shows that police fired into the home at least once after lobbing a flash grenade through a window.

He says that contradicts the police department's explanation that an officer's gun fired during a confrontation with a resident inside the home.

Seven-year-old Aiyana Jones was shot in the neck and died.

Fieger says he viewed three to four minutes of footage but declined to say who showed it to him.

The police department says it is trying to acquire the video.

An A&E spokesman declined to comment.

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7-year-old girl killed in Detroit police raid

(CNN) -- Police in Detroit, Michigan, on Sunday expressed "profound sorrow" at the fatal shooting of a 7-year-old girl in a police raid.
Aiyana Jones was shot and killed by police executing a search warrant as part of a homicide investigation, Assistant Chief Ralph Godbee said in a statement.
"This is any parent's worst nightmare," Godbee said. "It also is any police officer's worst nightmare. And today, it is all too real."
The warrant was executed about 12:40 a.m. ET Sunday at a home on the city's east side, Godbee said. Authorities believed the suspect in the Friday shooting death of 17-year-old high school student Jarean Blake was hiding out at the home. Blake was gunned down in front of a store as his girlfriend watched, Godbee said.
Preliminary information indicates that members of the Detroit Police Special Response Team approached the house and announced themselves as police, Godbee said, citing the officers and at least one independent witness.
"As is common in these types of situations, the officers deployed a distractionary device commonly known as a flash bang," he said in the statement. "The purpose of the device is to temporarily disorient occupants of the house to make it easier for officers to safely gain control of anyone inside and secure the premise."
Upon entering the home, the officer encountered a 46-year-old female inside the front room, Godbee said. "Exactly what happened next is a matter still under investigation, but it appears the officer and the woman had some level of physical contact.
"At about this time, the officer's weapon discharged one round which, tragically, struck 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley Jones in the neck/head area."
The girl was immediately transported to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead. Godbee said he and other officers went to the hospital while others stayed at the home to execute the warrant.
Aiyana's father, Charles Jones, told CNN affiliate WDIV, "She was sleeping and they came in the door shooting and throwing flash grenades ... burned my baby up and shot her, killed her."
Jones claimed the officers had the wrong house, but Godbee said in the statement the 34-year-old suspect in Blake's death was found and arrested at the home. In addition, a vehicle and a moped matching the descriptions of those involved in Blake's shooting were also found, he said.
The suspect's name was not released.

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25 Years Ago Today

Philly neighborhood scars unhealed from 1985 bomb

Published: Wednesday, May 12, 2010

By KATHY MATHESON
The Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Gerri Bostic lost all her material possessions 25 years ago when police dropped a bomb on her block, killing five children and six adult members of the militant group MOVE and incinerating 61 row homes.

Perhaps her biggest losses were her peace of mind and sense of community.

Her West Philadelphia neighborhood — now nearly vacant and eerily quiet — never recovered from the city’s horrific botched attempt to arrest the MOVE members on May 13, 1985. The violent confrontation was a rare bombing of American citizens by civilian authorities in the United States.

Today, after spending more than $43 million on redevelopment, the city has two blocks of boarded-up eyesores to show for its efforts. The homes built to replace those lost in the bomb-ignited inferno were so shoddy that officials stopped making repairs and offered buyouts.

“There’s nothing nice about this block anymore,” said Bostic, 89. “All the people are gone.”

And now that a long-running lawsuit over the replacement houses has ended, Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell says the city needs to put the past to rest on Osage Avenue and Pine Street.

“It’s time to make peace with it all and fix up the properties,” Blackwell said.

It won’t be easy; Philadelphia has many blighted areas competing for attention. And developers of these blocks will have the added challenge of winning support from embittered residents whose American Dream of homeownership has been a nightmare.

“We’ve been victimized twice,” Osage resident Milton Williams said.

Some might say Williams and his neighbors have been victimized three times — the first being when MOVE arrived around 1981.

The revolutionary back-to-nature group came to the city’s Cobbs Creek section after a 1978 shootout with police at its previous home. One officer died in the firefight; nine MOVE members went to prison, and others moved to Osage Avenue.

They soon turned their middle-class row house into a fortified compound, with a bunker on the roof and wooden slats over the windows. Reeking garbage attracted vermin, and loudspeakers blared obscene daily rants against authorities for jailing their peers.

“You really couldn’t get any rest,” said Connie Renfrow, who still lives on Osage. “The kids couldn’t do their studies.”

Her husband, Gerald Renfrow, said neighbors at first tried to address the problems directly with MOVE members, all of whom used the surname Africa. When talking failed, residents called authorities — but to no avail.

“They just let it fester,” he said.

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Columbia Cops Late Night Search Warrant For Resin And A Grinder

Columbia, Missouri Police Chief Ken Burton is apparently frustrated.

A reporter asked the chief what he has learned from the international attention generated by the youtube video of his department’s SWAT team conducting a drug raid last February.

His reply: “I hate the Internet.”

All in front of the kids.

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