Criminal law, Politics, Society

Video: Oakland Police Officer Shoots Photographer With Rubber Bullet Without Any Apparent Provocation

As fellow law professor sent me this video of Oakland police shooting a photographer. The video raises serious questions of the unjustified use of force.

In the video, the police appear to be standing without challenge when, around the 33 second mark, an officer suddenly shoot a photographer who is a good distance from the police line.

I cannot imagine the claim of justification in this case when the use of rubber bullets present significant potential harm to citizens, as shown below.

Kudos: Professor Alberto Bernabe (John Marshall Law School)

Source: Lowering Bar

397 thoughts on “Video: Oakland Police Officer Shoots Photographer With Rubber Bullet Without Any Apparent Provocation”

  1. I see that Mayor Jean Quan cannot seem to call the OWS movement what it is. She keeps referring to them as “Campers.” I think she would strangle herself if she tried to say the word, “Occupiers.”

  2. It is not at all clear that the black youth who was shot over a bag of pot was part of the OWS group. The shooting took place in the vicinity, but there have been drug related crimes in the area for years. This is not necessarily an outlier. He was killed at 14th & Broadway, outside the perimeter of the OWS activity.

    Y’know, the OWS protests could go away in short order if, as Lemony Snicket says, the people inside the impressive edifices actually did something about the economy and jobs instead of circling their wagons to protect their bonuses.

    More here by blogger J.P.Massar who has a collection of tweets that might add to the information base.

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/11/11/1035332/-Never-Been-So-Many-Reporters-At-a-Black-Youths-Murder-in-the-History-of-Oakland?via=siderec

  5. and more dangerous as another Man fatally shot.

    It was over a bag of weed.

    OAKLAND, Calif. – A man has died after being shot just outside the Oakland encampment that anti-Wall Street protesters have occupied for the last month.

    Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan says the victim was pronounced dead at a local hospital Thursday evening, less than two hours after two groups of men got into a fight near the Occupy Oakland camp on a plaza near City Hall.

    http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57322819/man-fatally-shot-near-occupy-oakland-camp/

  6. Bdaman
    It amazes me that the scope of the OWS movement is now national and international and you are worried about people showering?

    A lice outbreak was announced at the Occupy Portland this weekend. Now TB, it appears that the movement is becoming a health hazard. The TB that Occupy Atlanta has is drug resistant. It is becoming quite clear what is happening here.

  11. As far as the Occupy Movement being “taken over”, they told ‘Move On’ to move along.
    Not that any number of things could or could not happen, but being taken over is unlikely.

  13. Jiil, Last fall you and I went around and around about the tea party. Nothing has changed.

  15. Yes, Jill I get it. You are an apologist for a group of people who are more concerned about the rich paying more taxes than taking care of the poor and the infrastructure of the country.

  16. Police are para-military … they follow orders … those inflicting unnecessary injury on unarmed, peaceful demonstrators aren’t going rogue.

  17. Jill,
    When I comment on how the Tea Party has sold out to corporate interests, that is not dehumanizing anyone! It is merely telling the truth about their organization.

  18. Shano,

    You still don’t get what I’m saying. Or course Fox news is shilling. BTW, they aren’t the only ones. Of course the wealthy took over the tea party movement and they are trying to take over OWS. I will also say that the tea party movement has many, many heartless people in it, including people who were in the movement before it was ever taken over. We have absolutely no disagreement on any of these issues.

    I am saying to you, O.S. and everyone else on this blog who goes into automatic writing once the words “tea bagger” are conjured is this–your fear and hatred allows you to dehumanize another group of people. This is a profound mistake, one fostered by this govt. who would like nothing better than to pit people against each other. The OWS movement is using economic issues to bring people together. We need to bridge gaps.

    You don’t need to combine the movements S.M. and rafflaw. That would be very unlikely indeed. You just need to stop dehumanizing others. That doesn’t mean turning a blind eye or not having any criticism of other groups of people. But the dehumanization of others is destructive of reaching out and of one’s own spirit.

    O.S. I’m pretty certain you do know what would happen at an Obama fundraiser and it wouldn’t be pretty. Understanding what is happening means moving well beyond blaming “tea baggers” for everything that is wrong in this nation. That simply isn’t a reality based world view. If we keep assigning false causes to what is happening we will be unable to confront it. We need to practice radical honesty. The will move us beyond the reach of propaganda.

  19. shano:

    “the left – right paradigm no longer applies.”

    right. it should be individual rights, no individual rights paradigm.

  20. Juan Cole: “If we focus on economic trends, then the neoliberal state looks eerily similar, whether it is a democracy or a dictatorship, whether the government is nominally right of center or left of center. As a package, deregulation, the privatization of public resources and firms, corruption and forms of insider trading, and interference in the ability of workers to organize or engage in collective bargaining have allowed the top 1% in Israel, just as in Tunisia or the United States, to capture the lion’s share of profits from the growth of the last decades.

    Observers were puzzled by the huge crowds that turned out in both Tunis and Tel Aviv in 2011, especially given that economic growth in those countries had been running at a seemingly healthy 5% per annum. “Growth,” defined generally and without regard to its distribution, is the answer to a neoliberal question. The question of the 99% percent, however, is: Who is getting the increased wealth? In both of those countries, as in the United States and other neoliberal lands, the answer is: disproportionately the 1%.

    If you were wondering why outraged young people around the globe are chanting such similar slogans and using such similar tactics (includingFacebook “flash mobs”), it is because they have seen more clearly than their elders through the neoliberal shell game.”

    I have come to agree with the right when they say that the Democrats are culpable, too. Look at Bill Clinton, who said he “felt the pain in Haiti that his trade policies caused, wrecking local Haitian rice production with government subsidized rice from Arkansas”. But no comment on how to fix this problem.

    Further, one campaign promise we heard from both Hillary and Obama was the determination to re-negotiate NAFTA, et al, to include living wages and environmental protections. But what we got was MORE ‘Free Trade’ policies and no mention of this ‘Fair Trade’ promise after the election, ever.

    People are finally waking up. the left – right paradigm no longer applies.

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