Monday, January 12, 2009

BART Police Shooting makes me wish I was a prosecutor

Apparently what happened was a police officer shot and killed a helpless "suspect" (video here) who was on his belly on the ground, not resisting at all. Something like this makes me wish I was a prosecutor. I'd charge the police officer with first degree murder, using the same sort of logic used to charge non police all the time. Of course, the reality is that I doubt this cop will get charged anywhere near as severely as a non-cop would be. That just makes my blood boil.

2 comments:

Larry Hamelin said...

You don't wish you were a prosecutor. If you were an assistant DA, your boss (an elected official) would forbid you from prosecuting. If you were the elected DA, you'd know that you don't get campaign contributions by prosecuting cops.

DBB said...

I should clarify, when I say I wish I was the prosecutor, I meant to say I wish I was the elected prosecutor for that county (which is sometimes called a DA or something like it, but is also just called "County Prosecutor") so I could be the one who makes the discretionary decisions like that.

Now, maybe I'd only serve one term, but I'd still do what was right.