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Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Police Brutality in Oakland? Lethal Force? Whose Eyes Are You Going to Believe?
In the last CELS conference, Dan Kahan, working on the Cultural Cognition Project, presented a beautiful piece of research in which he and his coauthors showed a car chase video to a broad sample, to see whether they thought the police usage of lethal force was justified.Here's your chance to engage in a similar experiment. This is a cellphone video shot a few days ago at the Oakland BART station. What do you see?
Posted by Hadar Aviram on January 6, 2009 at 03:25 AM | Permalink
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Wait, is there some interpretation of the video in which a cop doesn't shoot someone on the ground at point-blank range with a bunch of other cops there and on top of the guy? Is there, perhaps, an interpretation in which the cop is really whipping out a taser or cuffs and the shot comes from a grassy knoll off-screen?
Posted by: Paul Gowder | Jan 6, 2009 4:08:29 AM
The video speaks for itself.
Posted by: andy | Jan 6, 2009 5:22:26 AM
Wait, is there some interpretation of the video in which a cop doesn't shoot someone on the ground at point-blank range with a bunch of other cops there and on top of the guy?
That about sums up my view as well. Seems a little trigger-happy to me.
Posted by: Hauk | Jan 6, 2009 8:57:05 AM
I see a challenge for the police union to explain why this cop shouldn't spend the rest of his life in prison. Though he'll probably just end up riding a desk for a few months, then return to the streets to serve and protect...
Posted by: Niles H | Jan 6, 2009 9:06:59 AM
Video never speaks for itself, which is the basic point of the Kahan study. Show this video to a broad enough cross-section of people enough times, combine it with competing eyewitness testimony, and it could be used to tell a number of different stories.
Posted by: Howard Wasserman | Jan 6, 2009 10:08:36 AM
I tried to watch this first with the sound and the commentary off, and then with the most possibly forgiving eyes I could. I still have a hard time seeing it as anything but an execution. Obviously, our responses are not a random cross-section of the population, but, well, I don't know.
My prediction: a huge settlement in a 1983 suit. Folks, this should not pass unnoticed.
Posted by: Hadar Aviram | Jan 6, 2009 10:33:41 AM
I think Hadar is absolutely right about that settlement. But that is due to the set of eyes with which BART and Oakland officials are going to view it, anticipating exactly how much (although not all) of the public likely will view it.
Posted by: Howard Wasserman | Jan 6, 2009 10:50:33 AM
It's a little hard for me to form a conclusion about the video alone because the clips have been edited and there's voice-over narration throughout. But it certainly looks suspicious. There's no obvious threat from any of the arrestees. There's still a couple of possibilities that come to mind though: the officer who fired mistakenly believed that he had seen a gun, or he believed that the man who was shot was attempting to pull one from the other officers' holsters. Watching the video again, it looks like the other officer, the one kneeling on the man's head or shoulders, gets up and backs away rapidly immediately before the shot. Was that because he was getting out of the way of his partner's line of fire, or to get away from a threat he perceived from the man on the ground?
Assuming no reasonable threat, the video is still consistent with at least two different interpretations: the officer was annoyed or angry at the man being arrested, and shot him in retaliation (i.e., executed him); or, the officer panicked during a routine arrest. Leaning against the "execution" explanation in my mind, in the absence of any other facts to go on, is my intuition that a malicious killer would wait for a more secluded opportunity, e.g. the attack on Abner Louima several years back, which occurred at the station house.
Posted by: Bruce Boyden | Jan 6, 2009 12:48:39 PM
Video never speaks for itself, which is the basic point of the Kahan study.
On further thought, this video could very well be interpreted as a soccer match between Glasgow and Dublin, depending on how it is presented to a viewer. Thus, a third party necessarily must speak for the video in order to understand what it means.
Posted by: andy | Jan 6, 2009 6:57:18 PM
It seems to me very hard to know what happened from this video. I wouldn't want to guess (and that's all we can do- you can't see clearly or hear what the people are saying) but if I had to I'd guess that the police officer foolishly took his gun out when not needed and then accidentally, and tragically, shot the guy. If so he should be held responsible. That said, though, one of the most common ways for a police officer to be shot (maybe the most common- I can't remember the percentages right now but it's certainly high) is with their own guns, taken away from them by people struggling in cases that look a lot like these. Police, of course, are aware of this and rightly worried by it. Was that something that was a legitimate concern here? I don't know, and neither does anyone else from seeing this video (certainly Paul Gowder doesn't, for example.) If the officer(s) acted criminally or criminally negligently they should be held responsible. But it's just impossible to tell from this video, important piece of evidence it may be. (On a side note, the news coverage is really odd and annoying- what's the point, or the use, or the interest, of showing various people watching the footage on a computer? How does that help anything? I almost never watch TV news, but that's just stupid and pointless. I'm very sorry to see it.)
Posted by: Matt | Jan 6, 2009 8:25:51 PM
I'm with Matt, the video isn't complete enough to figure out what happened.
Thank's for the shout-out to Whose Eyes!
Posted by: dave hoffman | Jan 6, 2009 11:09:58 PM
Matt:
one of the most common ways for a police officer to be shot (maybe the most common- I can't remember the percentages right now but it's certainly high) is with their own guns, taken away from them by people struggling in cases that look a lot like these. Police, of course, are aware of this and rightly worried by it. Was that something that was a legitimate concern here? I don't know, and neither does anyone else from seeing this video (certainly Paul Gowder doesn't, for example.)
The guy was facedown, and, as I recall (can't bear to watch it again, but feel free to correct me) the cop who shot him was toward his feet. He'd have to be a houdini-style contortionist, and have eyes in the back of his head, to grab that cop's gun.
Posted by: Paul Gowder | Jan 6, 2009 11:38:37 PM
To Matt, your right an officer is most likely to be shot by his own weapon. During a conversation I had with a local sheriff, he related an anecdotal story about when he first joined law enforcement before Kevlar became standard issue. He went to a Houston gun show to get a vest (because his mother made him). When he was purchasing the vest the shop owner asked him what caliber weapon he carried because that was the most likely weapon he was going to be shot with. But enough of that, let us look at this situation tactically. You have three officers, one standing to the side, one right next to his head, and one right behind his back where his arms are. In this situation the officer at his back has the clearest access to restrain his arms. Why then is he reaching for his weapon? Doing so removes one of his hands from being able to actively restrain the individual and forces the other officer to move in and try despite being at a bad angle. When the officer first moved upward to un-holster his weapon the other officer has his right hip furthest away from the suspect. Assuming he’s right handed and that blurry yet gun like shape on his right hip is his gun, there is no way the suspect could have grabbed at it while the other officer was reaching for his gun. After the officer moved to use his gun the other officer’s hip dipped closer to the suspect as he shifted from his original position to compensate for the other officer who stopped trying to restrain the individual. The one closest to his head or the other officer standing directly beside them would be the logical choice to draw their weapon should there be a threat of bodily harm. Failing that the officer next to his head would be in a key position to use mace or a taser directly to the back of the neck, where it would be highly effective (and no, it would not shock anyone holding on to him). Also beyond that, consider the nature to which the officer was introducing his weapon. He is straddling a struggling suspect. What could have happened if that suspect kicked at a bad moment? His shot could have flown wide and injured anyone else in that station or more likely the cop next to the suspect’s head. Looking at this video might not tell you much, but it tells me that that officer is inept.
Posted by: Corey Paulson | Jan 7, 2009 1:01:56 AM
Paul- first, you can't, in this video, see what the guy did or was doing in the moments just before- you just can't- it's not clear. If you'll read a bit more carefully as well you'll see that I didn't say this guy looked like he grabbed a gun or at a gun- I said you can't see what happens and I stick by that. If you think you can see what happens you're wrong. Why I mentioned officer's being shot by their own guns is that this guy is struggling w/ many officers, not just the one who shot him. Might have have actually reached for one of their guns, or looked like he was doing so? We can't say- again, you just can't see, and to imply you can is either dishonest or self-deception. But, if the officer who shot him _thought_ he was trying to get another officer's gun, that would explain why the shooting officer took out his gun. Otherwise it's unclear why he'd do it. Again, if forced to guess I would guess that he probably shouldn't have drawn his gun but, perhaps not completely unreasonably, though he should, and then fired by accident. Certainly that's at least as compatible as any other account and fits better with what I know about such happenings. (I know, from your ravings about "pigs" on your own blog, that you think very lowly of police officers. Sometimes this is right but often not.) So again, it looks to me like something went terribly wrong, but the video just isn't clear enough to form the strong conclusion you reach. I suggest that you're being swayed by your prejudices here more than the content of the video.
Posted by: Matt | Jan 7, 2009 7:29:57 AM
The key must be that the video usually does not and cannot stand alone, that the "story" it tells must be understood not only in the viewing (which, Kahan, et al. argue, is going to be subject to cultural differences in perception), but also in relation to other evidence, namely witness testimony. It is that testimony that will fill-in the gaps. One key gap in any criminal case, by the way, is going to be mens rea--and the video does not tell us whether the gun went off accidentally or whether the officer intended to fire.
The mistake the Supreme Court made in *Scott* (the police-chase case that Kahan studied) and that courts make in so many video cases is in treating the video as if it does stand alone and, with nothing else, can tell a complete story.
Posted by: Howard Wasserman | Jan 7, 2009 8:05:04 AM
One key gap in any criminal case, by the way, is going to be mens rea--and the video does not tell us whether the gun went off accidentally or whether the officer intended to fire.
Isn't that just a difference between murder and negligent homicide?
Posted by: Hauk | Jan 7, 2009 9:19:58 AM
Yeah, but that's not going to be an insignificant difference, especially if the testimony somehow establishes something (that the video does not show) about why he pulled the gun in the first place.
Posted by: Howard Wasserman | Jan 7, 2009 9:43:47 AM
Hauk- not necessarily. If the officer was justified in drawing his weapon (it doesn't seem like it to me, but I don't think this can be know for sure from the video), and then the actual firing of the weapon was non-negligent (certainly not impossible, even if not likely) then it's just a terrible accident. I think that possibility is _consistent_ with the video, even if not _supported_ by it. One just can't tell what happened from these films.
Posted by: Matt | Jan 7, 2009 9:49:25 AM
Matt, there were two other cops in close proximity. You can clearly see from the video that either of their guns are in the reach of a prone person lying on the floor in that position. (Read Corey's comment.)
It probably was an "accident" in some sense -- I never reached the "strong conclusion" that it was an execution-style killing, but an accident that would not have happened if the police didn't draw their guns at the slighest hint of movement from a young black man. The killing of Amadou Diallo was an "accident" in that sense too, but it's still murder.
(My opinions on the police in general are utterly irrelevant.)
Posted by: Paul Gowder | Jan 7, 2009 1:42:52 PM
(Uh, for either, read neither.)
Posted by: Paul Gowder | Jan 7, 2009 1:43:32 PM
Actually, Matt, do a little experiment, would you? Lie face down and see how your arm range of motion and agility are.
Posted by: Paul Gowder | Jan 7, 2009 2:01:57 PM
Paul, I still think you think you can see more in the video than is justified and that you're reading more in to it than is there. In fact it's perfectly possible to reach the waist height of a kneeling person from your stomach. You can try yourself. But here's a possibility, too- guy is on his back and even puts his hands behind his back. But, tucked into his pants is either a gun or something that, in the flash of a second, looks like one. Can you tell that's not so from the video? Of course not. But even if it was something that only looked like a gun then it would be justified, in fact probably required, for the officer to draw his weapon. Now, we don't have any idea if this is so. I'd not speculate. But what you're doing is just speculating, too.
As for Diallo, there are enough differences to make the cases not clearly comparable. For one, we know that the shooting there was intentional, even if the reason was also mistaken- we don't know that at all here. Secondly, the police officers in the Diallo case were under cover and not in uniform. To my mind that changes the dynamic quite a bit. (Note that this was also the case w/ one of the other famous shootings during the Gulliani era in NYC.) Finally, the officers in the Diallo case had no reason to suspect him of doing anything before approaching him, and he did just what he was asked. Here we know this person was removed from the train for fighting and we have no idea what else he's doing before the shooting- it's just not clear. Given these difference, I think you're obscuring more than making clear with the comparison, and that your general attitude towards "pigs" (in your term) is clouding your judgment. Anyway, I doubt I have anything else useful to add to this subject so I'll let you or anyone else who wants it have the last word.
Posted by: Matt | Jan 7, 2009 5:43:21 PM
Matt, I usually don't take those martyrdom last words, but I'll make an exception here, because it seems like you are going through incredible gymnastics to produce low-probability situations in which the police action was justified. You have a guy lying prone and being pinned down with no guns within reach grabbing at guns, more guns appearing in waistbands, next there will be guns raining from the sky or the guy's three black belts in karate and judo appearing from under his shirt.
That's not how one evaluates a video. One makes the most probable inferences from what one sees, without imagining unlikely facts to justify behavior. We're not engaged in Davidsonian radical interpretation here -- the principle of charity is a poor way to understand facts in situations like this, because there are two people in conflict to interpret. One can't imagine the facts that make the cop's behavior justified as well as imagine the facts that make the guy he shot innocent.
So what's the most probable interpretation?
Well, let's consider the huge social paranoia about young black males, and incident after incident after incident of urban police officers leaping to deadly force as a first option when it's a young black male involved. Let's consider the persistence of racial profiling despite years of condemnation. (A few weeks ago, the Palo Alto -- Palo Alto! -- police chief was forced to resign after, in response to some robberies, she flat-out announced that her officers were going to question black men out on the streets. What kind of a culture must there be among our police that a police chief in a very liberal city thinks she can say stuff like that?) Cops look at a young black man and they see danger.
Now we have a video where there are three cops on one young black man. He looks like maybe he's struggling a little, but not effectually. Suddenly, a cop stands up, draws his weapon, and fires at point-blank range.
Yeah, presumably the cop thought he observed something that made him feel like it was necessary to draw and use his gun. But that observation, like the Diallo observation, was mostly likely deeply tainted by the racism that pervades police departments and societies in general. I mean, black person + cellphone, black person + hair clip, black person + wallet, black person + spatula, black person + keys, black person + candy bar -- all those things = gun to cops.
That is the most probable interpretation of the video.
(Also, not all cops are pigs. Racist cops, violent cops, corrupt cops, lying cops, those are pigs, and the term is totally appropriate. Sadly, in my experience there are many, many of them.)
Posted by: Paul Gowder | Jan 7, 2009 10:57:30 PM
Pigs in no way should be compared to those who are racist, violent, corrupt, lying and so forth. Pigs are much better behaved than that, indeed, they're generally wonderful creatures and surprisingly quite kind and intelligent as you'll learn if you spend a sufficient amount of time with them.
Posted by: Patrick S. O'Donnell | Jan 8, 2009 2:13:52 AM
"Yeah, presumably the cop thought he observed something that made him feel like it was necessary to draw and use his gun. But that observation, like the Diallo observation, was mostly likely deeply tainted by the racism that pervades police departments and societies in general."
[Defense counsel] "Objection."
[Judge] "Grounds?"
[Defense counsel] "Rule 404(b)"
[Judge] "Sustained."
Posted by: Aaron Williams | Jan 8, 2009 4:25:32 PM
One thing this video tells *me*, is that I should keep my BS-detector turned to high when I read that official violence occurred "in the midst of a brawl between two groups of young train passengers" or during "a volatile and chaotic scene" (as were reported in the SF Chronicle before the videos surfaced). I will acknowledge that, based soley on the video(s), it is not entirely clear what level of threat a reasonable officer might have perceived (there was a crowd gathered, etc.). The initial, pre-video spin, however, clearly aimed to paint a picture of an out-of-control violent melee in which split-second decisions had to be made. And, in my view, the video(s) just as clearly belied such a characterization of the scene.
This puts me in mind of the epistimological dilemmas created by DNA exonerations and Brady v. Maryland violations. That is, we know that there are occassional exonerations, and we also know that only a small proportion of crimes involve DNA-testable evidence. Does this imply that there is a vast category of wrongful, but un-exonerable, convictions? Similarly, we know that a prosecutor's suppression of evidence is very, very hard to discover and prove, yet it is occassionally discovered and proven. Does this imply a vast category of undiscovered prosecutorial suppression?
Here, we are told regularly that the police have used force, including deadly force, but that such action was justified by the circumstances. Yet, occassionally, after we are told this, video evidence surfaces and disproves that explanation (or at least calls the explanation into serious doubt). Does this imply that we are regularly lied to about whether police violence was justified by the circumstances?
Posted by: Observer | Jan 8, 2009 7:13:30 PM
At least one newspaper article here in the Bay Area suggested the possibility that the officer meant to use his taser gun rather than his revolver. The officer has resigned from the transit police force but has given no statement. The tragic mistake (if that's what happened) would not exonerate him, of course.
Posted by: David Levine | Jan 10, 2009 1:55:54 AM
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