I know I havent been keeping up with my blog, but I've been pretty busy trying to keep up with school. Given today is the Sentencing of Johannes Meserhle I thought I would share my recent Case File for my Psychology class. It's a long read, but let me know your thoughts
Case File:BART Shooting Analysis
Matt Hubert
Psychology 1 Dr. Cabrera
Solano Community College
[Page Break]
Case File: Bart Shooting 2
Abstract
Research was conducted to analyze and show the effects of emotions and the responses they trigger in regards to the shooting that took place on January 1, 2009. Although, there is no clear cut reason why Oscar Grant died that night, some insight can be gained by applying the three theories of emotion; James-Lange theory, Cannon-bard Theory, and the Two Factor theory. The Cannon-Bard theory fits the series of events that took place within the officer’s mind given the facts that were collected during the writing of this paper.
[Page Break]
Case File: Bart Shooting3
Intro/Method
Throughout life we as humans are faced with stressful and physically taxing experiences. How we react to such situations has been long debated as to where exactly these responses come from and how they actually occur. Fight or Flight is a cliché often thrown about in instances such as this, but what does it really mean? “The "fight or flight response" is our body's primitive, automatic, inborn response that prepares the body to "fight" or "flee" from perceived attack, harm or threat to our survival.” (Neil F. Neimark). Unfortunately, our brains aren’t always in top decision making shape when this instinct decides to take over, fact that Johannes Mehserle knows all too well. Johannes was a BART police officer on duty the night that Oscar Grant died. In fact, he is the officer that drew his fire arm and shot off a single round into Oscars back as he lay on his stomach. Videos of the incident can be found all over the internet now, different angles, different qualities, but none of them can pick up on what is being said between the officers and Oscar. At first glance the sequence of events that arose during the altercation paint Johannes to be a racist cold blooded killer, according to various responses of views on a YouTube video. If you have never seen the video I recommend you view before proceeding with this essay because words cannot describe everything, but neither can the video. Both are merely a piece of the puzzle of the story of what exactly took place that unfortunate night. So what do we know about the incident? According to various testimonies, the train was stopped at the Fruitvale station when the conductor had called the police to report 12 men fighting on the train. Oscar Grant was one of the confirmed perpetrators and had tried to run back on to the train when he learned of what was going on. Once he was again removed from the train he was instructed to sit against the wall with 2 other suspects. This is where the videos all start. Johannes arrives at the
CaseFile: Bart Shooting 4
Scene as back up and instantly jumps to the aid of the other officers. Everything is calm and seems to be going smoothly. Then 3 other men come off of the train to see what the cops are doing to Grant and his accomplices. Things start to get a little hectic with a few police officers trying to subdue the others who just came off the train, and then when the police officers inform the 3 sitting down that they are going to be placed under arrest. Grant then jumps up from the ground protesting the arrest of his friend. Officers then push him back to the ground and proceed to place him under arrest. There is visual evidence to show that Oscar is putting up a bit of a struggle against the police officers as they tried to place him in handcuffs. Where this story takes a turn for the worst is when Johannes claims that Grant was refusing to put his right hand behind his back and placed it under his hip, seemingly reaching for a weapon. The officer Says “I’m going to Taze him!” proceeds to reach for the weapon and fires once into Oscars back. The mistake was that he did not grab his Taser, he mistakenly grabbed his firearm and the single bullet went completely through Oscar and ricochet off the ground back into his chest piercing his lung. Hours later Oscar Grant was pronounced dead at the local hospital and the video went viral. The blood on Johannes Mehserle’s hands was put out for the world to judge, and judge they did without a single inclination of the true nature of this unfortunate tragedy.
Arguing in Johannes defense has proven difficult to the many that do support him and believe is was an accident. With such striking visual evidence the mind can easily believe that this is an execution style white on black hate crime. Police brutality has long been debated and an issue so in a city like Oakland, CA that consists of predominantly low income African American households it really is no surprise how they reacted.
Case File:Bart Shooting 5
There undoubtedly are many instances of excessive force being displayed towards blacks by the Oakland Police, but Johannes cannot be the scapegoat for these abusers. Confirmation bias is a dangerous thing when it comes to situations like this which is why it is best to gather as much information about the event as possible and look at it from multiple perspectives before forming your own bias. To think that this was an intentional act of murder is to agree with the Schacter-Singer theory of emotion. This theory states that “To experience emotion one must be physically aroused and cognitively label that arousal” (David G. Myers p515). In other words, Johannes’ actions had to be triggered by Oscar Grant refusing to pull his hand from under his body. As a police officer his instincts tell him he’s reaching for his weapon so he labels it danger. Being cognitively aware of this he would logically know which one of his side arms to reach for which was clearly not the case. However, the part that does fit this theory is how Johannes reacted after firing the bullet. In the videos he shows a clear sense of astonishment as if to say “what did I just do?” as stated in the application for bail that was submitted to the court
“After telling Officer Pirone he was going to taze Grant and yelling at Pirone to “get
back,” Mehserle, according to witness statements, drew his department-issued firearm, which
was located on his right side, pointed the weapon at Mr. Grant’s back, and fired a single time.
Virtually all witnesses who saw the event or looked to the location where Mehserle was
standing after they heard the gunshot described Mehserle as being in shock and many saw him putting his hands to his head.” (5)
Case File:Bart Shooting 6
Although Mr. Mehserle was cognitive of his actions and stated he was going to taze Oscar Grant he naturally reached for his fire arm. Whether or not he needed to use even a Taser is subject to debate and more of a moral dilemma rather than scientific fact. What little facts that are available show while the Two-Factor theory has some relations with the situation is does not completely
meet the frame work. Yes he had a stimulus prior to his emotion of shock, but his cognitive awareness did not prevent his automatic response that had been previously programmed through his hours of training.
To really understand how powerful emotions are a clear explanation of what exactly emotions are is necessary. Emotion is “a response of the whole organism, involving physiological response, expressive behaviors and conscious experience” (David G. Myers p.515). In other words, when an emotion hits hard and fast your body will react. How it will react really depends on the person and their prior experiences. Some will act first think later and others manage their emotions within their actions. The Cannon-Bard theory of emotions works with the later. It’s described as “the theory that an emotion-arousing stimulus simultaneously triggers physiological responses and the subjective experience of emotion. A good example of this is shown in the video taken of the train station when Oscar Grant jumps up in response to the news that his friend would be arrested. His emotion of outrage and action of standing up quickly intertwined so closely that this theory fits completely. However, it does not explain Johannes actions in the slightest. As stated earlier there was an expression on his face immediately afterward that it’s hard to deny that his emotions set in after the shot had been fired. Police
Case File:Bart Shooting 7
officers are drilled and trained to respond to stressful situations in various ways depending on the stimuli. In this case the officer had been trained in a threatening situation that he reaches for his side arm located on his right side. While his intentions were to grab his Taser, which he had positioned on the opposite side of his belt, his minds automatic reaction was to reach for the gun. Unfortunately, this mistake resulted in the unnecessary death of a young father. By his instincts reacting prior to his emotion of shock and regret Johannes actions can be defined by the James-Lange theory of emotions. Which states “our experience of our emotion is our awareness of our physiological responses to emotion” (David G. Myers p.515) or in other words, action before emotion. It does not undo what was done or justify the tragic loss of Oscar Grant, but it does provide some insight to the things going on behind the curtain.
Conclusion
So was it an execution style murder or simply a case of mistaken weaponry? Every person will be inclined to lean one way or the other based on their personal experiences with the information as well as their own biases. Science cannot explain every view point or opinion but it most certainly can explain one man’s actions in a high stress situation. We’ve explored the different possibilities and theories and it’s fairly clear based on the evidence provided that this was an unfortunate lapse in judgment caused by Office Mehserle’s pre coded response. Hopefully the
Case File:Bart Shooting 8
BART Corporation will take a close look at the officers’ training guidelines to avoid another disaster like this. It was stated that “The officer who shot the gun had an expression on his face like “holy shit what happened or what did I do, with his hands around his head.” Caneva believed the officer also had an expression as “why did my gun go off?” (Statement of Witness Pam Caneva. 5). So clearly he did not mean to put a bullet into the young officer, so hopefully now that this information has been presented in a way to gain a better understanding of what happened in Johannes mind the training regime will be adjusted to put more cognitive thought into the reaction to a volatile situation.
[Page Break]
Case File:Bart Shooting 9
References
1.Behind murder charge against ex-BART officer: San Francisco Chronicle, Demian Bulwa, Wyatt Buchanan,Matthew Yi, Chronicle Staff Writers San Francisco Chronicle; January 14, 2009 06:51 PMCopyright San Francisco Chronicle. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Thursday, January 15, 2009
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/15/MNJE15A6O2.DTL
2.The Fight or Flight Response: Neil F. Neimark, http://www.thebodysoulconnection.com/EducationCenter/fight.html
3.Did the Jury for the BART Shooting Get the ‘Right’ Verdict?: Stephen Littau, The Liberty papers July 13,2010. http://www.thelibertypapers.org/2010/07/13/did-the-jury-for-the-bart-shooting-get-the-%E2%80%98right%E2%80%99-verdict/
4.Justice for Johannes Mehserle: Radley Balco, Reason.Com; July 12,2010
http://reason.com/archives/2010/07/12/justice-for-johannes-mehserle
5.MOTION TO SET BAIL: Michael L. Rains, Defense attorney for Johanes Mehsersle; January 30, 2009
http://cdn.sfgate.com/chronicle/acrobat/2009/01/30/motion_for_bail.pdf
6.BART Shooting -- Peeling Back the Layers to the Truth: Rich Silverstein: The Huffington Post; July 9,2010
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rich-silverstein/bart-shooting----peeling_b_641304.html
7.Psychology-8th edition in modules: David G. Myers; 2007 by Worth Publishers
No comments:
Post a Comment