Another Murder Unpunished

On January 1st, Oakland, California resident Oscar Grant was fatally shot at point-blank range while laying face-down on the ground in a subway station. There were countless witnesses and videos of the incident, and the shooter's identity is known. The only reason this horrific act of violence is not being called murder is because the shooter is a police officer.

The shooter, transit officer Johannes Mehserle, had not given a statement to police more than five days after the shooting, nor has he been taken into custody by police. The family of Oscar Grant is filing a $25 million wrongful death lawsuit, yet there is no talk of Mehserle being arrested or tried for the cold-blooded murder. Unbelievably, it is even possible that he may be allowed to remain a police officer.

In a nation looking more like a police state every day, this kind of brutal murder by militarized, trigger-happy police is much more common than most Americans know. While most similar incidents merit little more than a headline in a local paper, one can find a disturbingly large collection of such state-funded murders and assaults on The Agitator blog, run by Reason Magazine editor Radley Balko.

Libertarians traditionally hold a wide range of views on the proper role of law enforcement. Regardless, such senseless acts of cowardly violence (shooting a man in the back as he lays helpless on the ground is unquestionably cowardly) should be universally denounced by all who value freedom. Just as importantly, the attitudes and processes that make the perpetrators of these acts virtually untouchable must be changed.