Please refrain from editorializing in your headlines, and in your reporting. This Oakland resident is NOT wondering if cops defending themselves against assult by a deranged, knife-weilding  suspect who had enough chemicals or adrenalin in him to shrug off two taser shots are "trigger happy".   Also, a knife in each hand meets most reasonable definitions of "armed' so your use of quotation marks is either spruious or inflammatory.

The tone of much Oakland Local "reporting"  (yes, I'm using the quotes ironicaly) of police activity during and in the wake of the Oscar Grant tragedy has grown increasingly biased and hysterical.  Just give us the facts, please, without prejudice and polemics.

Now that BART has a civilian auditor overseeing BART police investigations of misconduct, it’s time to deal with Oakland’s ineffective oversight of police. There are two agencies that intake complaints against Oakland police officers: Internal Affairs and the Citizens’ Police Review Board. Most people don’t even know about the latter. Duplicate functions is a waste of money, and most people don’t bother going to Internal Affairs because they don’t trust the objectivity of their investigations – and with good reason. Internal Affairs almost never sustains citizens’ complaints against officers. The City Council voted to close Internal Affairs to citizen complaints and send all of the complaints to the CPRB which can investigate for less than half the cost of sworn officers. Not only will it save money, but at least ten Internal Affairs officers would be re-assigned to perform police work like patrol or criminal investigations, instead of desk work. The problem is there’s no money in the budget to hire the additional CPRB staff needed because of the deficit. But there is a solution: fund the additional CPRB staff through the proposed Measure Y ‘fix’ headed for the November ballot. That way, the CPRB would survive the draconian cuts that are in the offing: Perata has already said he would axe that agency to save money. How ironic would it be if, just as BART got civilian oversight, Oakland lost ours? Folks should let their Council members know that they value civilian oversight of police, and would rather have police do police work than paper work. They should insist that funding this sensible change in policy must occur through the Measure Y revision!

I was also turned off by the reference to trigger happy cops.. While saddened at the shooting, it feels clear that the officers attempted to use their taser before using lethal force, and then only after he ran at them with knives in hand.  I feel strongly that in order to bridge the gap between the oakland community and our police department we must reach out in both directions and make every attempt to build a stronger community together.  I believe Oakland Local to be a valuable resource and hope that you keep the ultimate goal in focus.  

Thanks for the comments, everyone. Our reference to trigger-happy cops upset a few people, so let me say a couple of things:

a) When something is opinion on OL, we mark it as such--Op-Ed, Opinion, even Community Voices (which means it is a community piece, not written by a reporter.

b) Our articles adhere to the code of ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists--accurate and sourced (see code here:www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp_.

c) In this case, many people in the community have been asking about why more than 5 police officers--BART and OPD--all shot one man. We have no way to know what the situation was until the investigations are complete, but we heard from many people--and read on Facebook about people--with REAL names-who expressed concern.

d) OL is asking the OPD more about how many rounds were fired, what the chain of command was in making this decision and whether this degree of force (5 officers, 1 man with 2 knives) was justified and standard practice.  Believe me, BART and OPD are asking the same questions.

Having said that, thanks for commenting here--your views--even when we annoy you--are alway welcome.

I'm an Oakland resident wondering about trigger-happy cops.  What reason do we have to trust the police accounts at all?  Why wouldn't they protect themselves against anger by painting the man they shot as a "criminal" not worth being regarded as human?  And if shooting a man gets you a paid vacation, shouldn't we worry about that?

We should all work to figure out ways to not rely on police - they do not represent safety, in Oakland (and all over) they represent harm.  Community accountability boards aren't going to do anything and never have been successful at doing so - only people who want to be held accountable will, and I don't think the cops do.  After all, their budgets get boosted the more people they can arrest, the more "research" (also known as harassment and racial profiling) they do into "gang membership", and the more crime there is.

@Ms. Grinage: Thank you very much for this post! This is a concrete and viable way to address peoples' concerns about police oversight and accountability.  It would be nice to hear more about the CPRB and its composition, and the vectors to report police abuses to them.  This is the kind of info that truly empowers and engages people.

@Ms. Mernet: But..this was apparently written by a reporter. Perhaps the omission of an Op-Ed or Community Voices tag was missing on this particular post.  The use of editorial and positional phrases like 'trigger-happy' and the egregious use of quotation marks in the article effectively remove it from a straight reporting context, even though much of the content is factual.

SPJ Ethics Code: Distinguish between advocacy and news reporting. Analysis and commentary should be labeled and not misrepresent fact or context.

I'm in no way saying the question of appropriate force shouldn't be raised.  It should be--in an opinion piece.  But this entry and others like it are being represented as journalism.  I note that in the updated article the OPD & BARTPD reviews of the incident are now mentioned.  Their appearance in the original article would have gone a long way to mitigate the license taken in the original post.  Perhaps these were added in response to 'a few people' who were upset by the tone of this piece?  If so, thank you.

@Erewhon, sharp-eyed comments never hurt. thx.

I am also glad that you removed the wording "officers pummeled the man with bullets".

I found this account to be more researched and balanced:

http://www.baycitizen.org/crime/story/suspect-shot-and-killed-saturday-bart/

It does, after all, seem like a good idea to ask residents in Fruitvale how they feel about a knife-weilding man roaming the streets, as well as their take on police response.