Bay Area police shooting and subsequent protests

I haven't seen much in the national news following the New Year's Day shooting in the Bay Area of a 22 year old by a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) police officer. But the fact that people at the scene took videos of the shooting is--well, I guess stunning is the right word. They did a good thing I guess, though I haven't been able to bring myself to watch them. It's evidence of brutality, but as soon as it's out there, there's a lot of rage to be stirred up.

A close friend in San Francisco had this to say:

"Yeah, it's a fucked up situation. I didn't know anything about it until I returned to work Monday morning and looked at the Chronicle's website. The taser thing [the police officer claimed he was reaching for a taser, not a gun] sounds like bullshit but I also have trouble believing that a cop would just shoot a guy lying there like that in front of all those people with cameras. I've definitely noticed a heightened police presence on BART since I've been back."

And just a moment ago the same friend pointed me to new stories about violent protests in Oakland:

"Regarding the BART police situation, things took an ugly turn in Oakland last night: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/07/MN2N155CN1.DTL"

The article includes this exchange:

"I feel like the night is going great," said Nia Sykes, 24, of San Francisco, one of the demonstrators. "I feel like Oakland should make some noise. This is how we need to fight back. It's for the murder of a black male."

Sykes, who is black, had little sympathy for the owner of Creative African Braids.

"She should be glad she just lost her business and not her life," Sykes said. She added that she did have one worry for the night: "I just hope nobody gets shot or killed."

My friend and I witnessed a handful of violent protests in our hometown of Washington, D.C. Self-immolation is hard to watch, let alone understand--except in cases of police misconduct, when the people supervising your protest are the same ones you blame for the inciting incident. But as my friend said, "I respect that there's frustration but I can't get behind the 'destroy everything no matter whom it belongs to' attitude."

I hope things calm down in San Francisco and Oakland. There are parts of Washington that decades later still haven't recovered from riots.