Big news today on CBS 5 is word that a $25 Million lawsuit is being brought against BART after an unarmed rider was shot to death by a member of the transit agency's police force:
An Oakland attorney representing the family of a man slain by a Bay
Area Rapid Transit police officer early New Year's Day said Sunday that
they will file a $25 million lawsuit against BART.
Lawyer John Burris said at a news conference that he planned to file
the claim against the transit agency in the shooting death of 22-year
Oscar Grant of Hayward within a week.
Burris on Sunday called the shooting intentional and said he would ask
prosecutors to seek criminal charges against the officer. He reiterated
that Grant, who witnesses said was lying on the ground waiting to be
handcuffed, posed no threat when he was fatally shot around 2:15 a.m.
Thursday.
"He was not doing anything of a threatening nature to the officer," Burris said.
Home video, provided to CBS 5 on Saturday by 19-year-old witness
Kristin Vargas, would seem to support the contention that Grant was
laying on his stomach with his hands behind him on a train platform
when a single shot was fired by a BART officer.
I've watched
the video provided to CBS 5, and happen to agree with the BART spokesperson: This video is inconclusive. It's chilling, to say the least. And you can hear people shouting about the victim being shot. But there is no clear cut evidence on
this specific video that shows that the officer acted inappropriately.
The rider was unarmed, however, and so he would have had to have been a undoubted source of danger to the officer's life or the lives of others to justify a shooting, especially one in the back. What could possibly constitute such a threat without a weapon involved?
Watch the footage yourself at CBS5.com and make your own assessment.
