Then, suddenly, it dawned on me.  I think I know what happened, and I think it was a horrible accident.

Two things made me realize this.  In the only video that shows the actual shooting, the cop who fired the gun, quickly and briefly, grabs his head as if he is totally surprised.  It didn’t make sense.  But then later when I read an eyewitness account of what they saw and heard, I read something that suddenly made it all make sense.  The witness said that just before the officer got up and fired the gun, Oscar Grant was yelling “No…. please don’t taser me”.  To me… that meant one thing.  One of the cops must have said… “Taser him”.

It is my belief that the cop that shot Oscar Grant in the back, got up to draw his Taser pistol, thought he did, and squeezed the trigger.  You may think that’s a crazy idea… but it really isn’t.

Cops get lots of training with a Taser, and through all of it they practice while wearing one on their side. Like any kind of practice… from hitting a baseball… to playing a guitar… you repeat things over and over so that when you need the skill it’s automatic.

Cops also train with their firearm.  They do lots of training with it… always wearing it on their side during the training.  When they train in hand-to-hand combat they usually do that while also wearing a fake plastic gun on their side in their holster.  They practice firing over and over, and to simulate real life conditions they always draw their weapon from a holster on their side.

What I realized to myself today, was something I had never even thought about before.  Cops never train wearing both, or even wearing a taser and a plastic training gun.  They NEVER practice drawing one or the other depending on the situation.  They learn about which is appropriate in different situations, but they don’t ever practice physically drawing one or the other in a stressful scenario.

I think that is why Oscar Grant is dead.

Imagine you are one of several cops who have decided to arrest an individual, an individual that you believe has already been fighting (that’s what the original call was about).  You start with the fairly standard procedure of laying him prone so you can control him as you cuff his hands behind his back.  But he is struggling, and despite the fact that there are 3 of you, you can’t seem to be able to get the cuffs on him.  People often struggle… it doesn’t matter why they do… sometimes it’s because they believe they are innocent and shouldn’t be handcuffed… it doesn’t matter.  You are struggling, and you are puffing, and your heart is beating fast.  Your vision is becoming narrowed as you focus on the task, and you begin to hear people around you shouting and getting closer.  Fear, of what could develop narrows your focus even more.  You hear a fellow cop say… “Taser him!”  That makes sense.  If you “tase” him, you will gain control, cuff the guy, and it will all be over.  You jump up… your training kicks in… you reach for your Taser… you pull it out of the holster, point it, and shoot.

Only it wasn’t your taser… it makes an unbelievably loud noise…

Right handed cops draw weapons with their right hand… both of those weapons have to be on their belt in a position where they can be quickly drawn.  And we know that in stressful situations cops always revert to their training… even when their training has been flawed  by never considering… the possibility of this mistake.

The gun on the left is a Glock 9mm… the gun on the right is a Taser.  If you had only trained with them separately, and you were in the the state of mind I described, are you sure you would always grab the correct one without looking?

I could be wrong.  But I think I’m right.

The next night Dave found out more…

We will never know.

The only solution that would actually give Florida voters their say in the nomination process would be to hold the election again with the knowledge that the new results would count at the Democratic Convention. And I think we know that isn’t going to happen. Florida voters who voted in January were disenfranchised, and Florida voters who didn’t bother to vote in an election they knew wouldn’t count were disenfranchised every bit as much.

So please don’t tell us, all high and mighty, that you are “standing up for the voters of Florida”. You are standing up for your failed campaign. You very well might have won a real Florida Democratic Primary, but we never had one.