Thank God for Cell Phone Video

A BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) police office fatally shot a 22-year-old man during an arrest on New Years Day, in what appears from video to be a summary execution at best. Read after the jump.

From the San Francisco Chronicle — Early New Year's Day, a rookie officer with the BART police shot and killed an unarmed 22-year-old man on a platform at the Fruitvale Station. The officer is on leave. The man's family is suing for $25 million. The BART police say that they are taking the investigation very seriously, but they had better find a way to reach out to the public effectively about what is going on and why. Otherwise, public outrage over this case is going to grow exponentially with every passing day.

The raw cell-phone videos captured by witnesses on the train do not look promising for the BART police. The BART police do not have their own video - there's a live camera feed that goes to the department from the Fruitvale station, but they haven't had the money to upgrade their equipment so that it can record. This presents a crucial issue - what if there had been no witnesses with video recorders?

Read the entire story here.
A video of the shooting is here.
Podcast of the building protest surrounding the shoot.
What the fuck is going on?

Thanks Oliver for this