Slashdot Mirror
BART Keeps Cell Service Despite Protests
Okian Warrior writes "After taking heat from the ACLU and being hacked by Anonymous for shutting down cellphone service to four stations last week, BART kept cell service on during Monday's protests. Officials at Bay Area Rapid Transit decided Monday that cutting cellphone service to thwart another planned protest would cause more trouble than the protests themselves. Instead, four stations were temporarily closed, creating a chaotic rush-hour commute."
If I has been in charge of BART this weekend (and I was up in the Bay Area during this) I would have shut the whole courtesy BART cell phone repeater system down and told the EFF and the ACLU to take a flying f'ing leap into the bay. There is NOTHING in the Constitution about freedom of speech that says that you have to assist demonstrators in shutting down your system. BART exists to move people efficiently in a city with too many cars, too much pollution, and never enough parking. The demonstrators are a bunch of loonies who want to be part of an Anonymous based action and have no right to even be on BART's private property for that purpose. If BART directors actually had a spine that wasn't broken down by too much bending down to Political Correctness they wouldn't have these issues. This is something to be sorted out in the courts, not on the streets - unless you really want to become Egypt. Personally, I don't.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
The cell phone antennas in the BART tunnels and platforms are own and operated by the carriers, who pay a hefty sum of cash to BART as rent.
Did you not read the headline of the story you linked? "Bart shooting video shows thrown knife, but not threat man posed."
BART police arrive on the platform in response to a call of a man being too drunk to stand. Within 30 seconds of arriving on the platform, they had shot the man to death -- apparently, for being drunk and mouthing off to police.
Apparently the man was belligerent, apparently he had a weapon, and he threw the weapon at them. What did the officers think he was -- a circus knife-thrower? Was he planning to pin the officers to the wall with knives, maybe? He was apparently too drunk to walk straight, so maybe he was planning to do that with his hand over one eye?
But hold on -- according to the story you linked, the man wasn't considered a threat because he threw a knife at police. He threw a bottle. I'd hardly call that a threat to the officers' lives. They say the bottle cut them. Well, show me the hospital report or boo fucking hoo.
But let's say he did throw a knife. Is that when you decide you have no recourse but to shoot a guy -- after he's thrown away his weapon? If he'd just tossed it down on the ground, presumably they would have still screamed "he's got a knife!!" and shot him?
But no -- the truth is, according to the very story you linked, the suspect didn't even throw the knife until after the officer shot him. If a belligerent police officer came out of nowhere and started shooting at you -- remember, police had arrived on the platform less than 30 seconds ago -- might not you also try to to defend yourself?
How did any of this happen? Did the officer not have time to say "halt"? Or "drop your weapon"? The drunk man, who was reported as being too drunk to stand and too drunk to walk straight, was such a threat to the officers' lives that even though they were armed and wearing body armor, as soon as they him, they realized they had just 24 seconds to shoot him dead?
And perhaps the most pertinent question: Why did they choose their firearms instead of their tasers? When Johannes Mehserle murdered Oscar Grant by shooting him in the back while Grant was face down on the ground and handcuffed, Mehserle's excuse was that he mistook his firearm for his taser. Many, many law enforcement experts came forward to say that this was highly unlikely, as officers are required to keep their taser and their handgun on opposite sides of their bodies. Mistaking the two would be tantamount to mistaking your own left hand for your right. Now this other officer chooses to draw his handgun and use lethal force on an inebriated suspect, while his taser sits in his holster, unused. That's an interesting coincidence, don't you think?
I've always thought it was interesting, too, that BART police officers seem to carry 2-3 extra magazines on their belts when patrolling trains. Just how many shots do they expect to have to get off on an occupied train or inside a subway platform, anyway? 45?
Might it not be that BART police training encourages officers to use their firearms as the first line of defense? And that BART needs to answer to this pattern of behavior by its police force? But that it chooses not to answer, because its police force is not answerable to any city's mayor or city council, and in fact is answerable to no organization but BART itself? And therefore the public's only real recourse is civic unrest?
I'm just floating the possibility out there.
Breakfast served all day!