Midnight in the Garden of Concrete and BART: Are the BART Po'Lice Better After Oscar Grant?

p img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/u26/BART.jpg" style="width: 201px; height: 251px;" //p p br / Part 1:nbsp; Another BART Murder/p p strongFrom what I know at this point, yes, I#39;m comfortable with what has occurred/strongbr / --BART Police Chief Kenton Rainey, at a Monday, July 4th, 2011, press conference/p p Friday, July 8th, 2011, I worked with Bruce Allison on his report on Homes Not Jails squatting protest, put some other articles on the POOR Magazine website, indulged in Facebook addiction and, later, was unpleasantly reminded of the BART span data-scayt_word="Po'Lice" data-scaytid="1"Po#39;Lice/span shooting of a man at the Civic Center (San Francisco) BART station on the night of July 3rd, 2011./p p The San Francisco Examiner, usually ultra-conservative about virtually everything they cover, published a Just My Opinion span data-scayt_word="op-ed" data-scaytid="18"op-ed/span piece by emAntioch Herald/em editor Dave Roberts, who was very much UNCOMFORTABLE with the BART shooting.nbsp; The Oscar Grant shooting produced a lot of mixed results, including a mandatory annual 40-hour training regimen for BART span data-scayt_word="Po'Lice" data-scaytid="2"Po#39;Lice/span./p p That 40 hours isn#39;t enough.nbsp; Roberts asks some good questions, including--did the BART span data-scayt_word="Po'Lice" data-scaytid="3"Po#39;Lice/span officers panic?nbsp; There have been so many shootings of, usually, non-White men, some of them under the influence of alcohol or something else, or suffering an emotional or mental crisis.nbsp; The BART span data-scayt_word="Po'Lice" data-scaytid="4"Po#39;Lice/span said that this particular man who was shot to death was waving a bottle of booze around, and a knife, and looked wobbly./p p I must be naive.nbsp; I mean, if you put the Military uniform on and get sent into Harm#39;s Way nobody should be surprised if you come back in a coffin.nbsp; Why are span data-scayt_word="Po'Lice" data-scaytid="5"Po#39;Lice/span such cowards they shoot to kill, all the time, even when the person in crisis is in a wheelchair?nbsp; We#39;ve had at least one of those kind of span data-scayt_word="Po'Lice" data-scaytid="6"Po#39;Lice/span shootings happen in span data-scayt_word="Amerikkka" data-scaytid="19"Amerikkka/span this year too./p p Why are they so unable to do the job the entire community expects of them, even those of us who push shopping carts full of cans and bottles, etc?/p p Part 2:nbsp; Midnight in the Garden of Concrete and BART/p p I got home in time to find out, via the San Francisco Giants#39; Midnight Replay on span data-scayt_word="KNBR" data-scaytid="20"KNBR/span radio station, that the Mets won the first game of the series.nbsp; BART seems to have won a battle with an elderly African-descended man in a wheelchair, via, you guessed it, the BART span data-scayt_word="Po'Lice" data-scaytid="7"Po#39;Lice/span./p p When I got to the bus stop to wait for the last #49 there was a BART span data-scayt_word="Po'Lice" data-scaytid="8"Po#39;Lice/span car parked in the span data-scayt_word="MUNI" data-scaytid="21"MUNI/span bus stop zone, and two BART span data-scayt_word="Po'Lice" data-scaytid="9"Po#39;Lice/span talking to the Elder (Poverty) span data-scayt_word="Skola" data-scaytid="22"Skola/span in the wheelchair.nbsp; They moved from the span data-scayt_word="Walgreen's" data-scaytid="25"Walgreen#39;s/span store entrance over to the concrete territory between the bus stop and the BART elevator.nbsp; One BART span data-scayt_word="Po'Lice" data-scaytid="10"Po#39;Lice/span was White, the other Asian./p p They blocked the elevator doors and insisted BART was closed.nbsp; Then the white BART cop left the other one alone with the old man while he went underground to talk to somebody.nbsp; I didn#39;t see him again./p p The Asian BART span data-scayt_word="Po'Lice" data-scaytid="11"Po#39;Lice/span talked with the Elder span data-scayt_word="Skola" data-scaytid="23"Skola/span, asking where he lived and if he planned to stay outside all night.nbsp; The old man, who looked to me to be a True Elder Poverty span data-scayt_word="Skola" data-scaytid="24"Skola/span if I#39;ve ever seen one, said he lived in Oakland or Vallejo, and the way that part of the conversation progressed I couldn#39;t tell if he was unable to remember where he actually lived, or if he was just trying to out-wait the BART span data-scayt_word="Po'Lice" data-scaytid="12"Po#39;Lice/span.nbsp; I suspected he just wanted the span data-scayt_word="Po'Lice" data-scaytid="13"Po#39;Lice/span out of his hair./p p This is what the BART span data-scayt_word="Po'Lice" data-scaytid="14"Po#39;Lice/span are for, I guess.nbsp; They exist to kill any non-White person who disturbs the peace too much, and they exist to not give a damn or an iota of real assistance to any poverty span data-scayt_word="skola" data-scaytid="26"skola/span who is obviously in need.nbsp; I was at least as unhappy as emAntioch Herald/em editor Dave Roberts is over the Civic Center shooting, not least because there was no help I could offer the elder poverty span data-scayt_word="skola" data-scaytid="27"skola/span./p p I don#39;t know what happened after my bus took me home.nbsp; I do know the BART span data-scayt_word="Po'Lice" data-scaytid="15"Po#39;Lice/span are useless and should be replaced with people who know how to respond to people in crisis.nbsp; BART span data-scayt_word="Po'Lice" data-scaytid="16"Po#39;Lice/span Chief Kenton Rainey sounds just like the clueless drone he replaced.nbsp; If BART doesn#39;t improve its span data-scayt_word="Po'Lice" data-scaytid="17"Po#39;Lice/span force substantially, I have another suggestion for them./p p Replace Rainey with somebody who gives a damn.nbsp; The San Francisco Sheriff#39;s Department is losing someone who might actually make BART safe for EVERYONE who rides it.nbsp; Hint!nbsp; Hint!nbsp; Just do it./p