Back on New Year's day there was a fatal shooting in Oakland's Fruitvale Bart train station, when a Bart police officer fatally shot a 22 year-old.

This was big news, but then the issue exploded when an eyewitness sent a video of the event that they'd filmed with their phone to a local news station.  In the fuzzy video, the youth is shown handcuffed and lying on the ground on his stomach, not being much of a threat, when an officer pulled out his gun and shot him in the back.

This shooting happened at the same station where somebody tried to steal my laptop last March, and my first reaction upon hearing the news was 'good, hopefully that means no more punks will do anything stupid there', but after seeing the video, my stomach turned - he was not posing any threat whatsoever, how could a police officer shoot him like that?!?

Of course the video caused a huge, huge reaction.  There were immediate demands to arrest the police officer.  The officer was not arrested, but an investigation was held.  Rather than submit statements on the incident, the officer chose to resign and as a result was protected by some law which said that he does not have to testify or provide statements or anything.  He was not even held in custody at any point, and there was a protest staged in downtown Oakland this past Wednesday.  The protest quickly became a riot, with lots of damage to the surrounding stores and cars.  The riot reminded many of the Rodney King riots in LA, though it wasn't quite on the same scale.  BART took the precaution to not stop in Fruitvale station, where the shooting (and my attempted mugging) took place.

After watching news reports from the frustrated and scared owners of stores and cars damaged in the riot, and hearing the victim's family pleading for a stop to the violent riots, I'm a little apprehensive to ride on the Bart through that station.  Luckily I worked from home on Thursday, so I did not pass through the area when there must been some residual anger, frustration, and fear.  My Friday commute seemed lighter than usual, though I can't really whether it was mere coincidence or if it was in fact due to fear of possible violence on the train.

I expect that by Monday things will have died down, but I'm still hoping to not see a police officer on the train. If there are any angry/stupid Oakland youths on the train at the same time, who knows what will happen.  I do not want to be caught in the middle of a violent confrontation.