From who’s your nanny:
Johannes Mehserle, the former BART officer who fatally shot 22-year-old Oscar Grant in the back while other officers kneeled on him, has been arrested on a fugitive warrant in connection with the shooting.
Given the general difficulty of holding government police accountable for abusive actions, it shouldn’t be considered too much of a leap to assume Mehserle was arrested only because his conduct was caught on video by concerned citizens and thus elicited public outrage.
And considering the cops are already known to hassle people who take photos on public property and even arrest us for taking pictures of them, I fully expect to see new laws arise prohibiting photography of our valiant “protectors” — even though this case is a perfect example of why such methods of accountability should forever remain legal.
If you really believe government police have the best interests of the citizenry at heart, ask yourself how this whole situation would have played out had Mehserle not been nabbed by the candid camera.
The system “works”!
10:17 am on January 14, 2009
