Earlier today, I watched KTVU's footage of the kid who was shot by the police in the BART station on New Year's Eve. It has been haunting me.

I had heard about the shooting earlier, but only in passing, and several key details were missing from my understanding. Most notably:

a) The kid was handcuffed, face down on the floor, and docile
b) The cop just drew his weapon and shot him in the back.

This was done in front of a couple hundred people on the BART train. At least two of them recorded the incident with video cameras. These videos were broadcast by KTVU (a local station here in the Bay Area).

(I shall leave the discussion as to whether or not it is in the public's best interest to air something so inflammatory, thus making the public the jury, for another time. Especially since, by all accounts, the videos have not been delivered to the police or any investigative committee.)

The videos are not bloody or anything like that, but they do show someone being shot. So, as a favor to those who may not wish to see it, be aware that the next link has the videos.

It is available here.

Nothing has shocked me like this since I watched Rodney King get a police beatdown on national television.

This event is screwing with my head and here's why: I cannot make sense of it. At all.

For real.

These police were armed with all sorts of non-lethal tools - including tasers. If the kid had been fighting the cops, they should have tased him. Why did he even draw his sidearm at all?

In San Francisco at least, police sidearms do not have safety switches. So I can see there being a situation where the gun could go off or something. . . BUT HE DREW THE WEAPON WHEN HE CLEARLY DID NOT NEED TO. There were maybe five or six people who had been detained and what looked like at least ten police officers there. They had the situation under control. No one was fighting.

It looked, honestly, like an execution.

Why draw? Why?

I cannot find a motivation for this and it frankly horrifies me.

I am friends with many police officers. More than I can count on my fingers. Some of them are bona-fide heroes with the scars and recognition to prove it. Others have had to do some really unsavory things (I know one of the men who had to shoot Titania the tiger last Christmas).

These are not evil men. They're not bullies or thugs. It can be a popular opinion to think of the police as "pigs" trying to oppress everyone but I don't think that's true. If it were true, I could understand the shooting. It would make sense to me.

But it doesn't.

And now my brain is running in circles, trying to put together a puzzle to which I don't think there is a solution.

I pray that it was an accident, and I pray that there is a reasonable explanation.

I'm just not seeing it yet.

We have another death this morning.

Authorities described Lechado as a "mid-level" member of the MS-13, or Mara Salvatrucha, street gang. They believe the slayings of two men later Thursday night may have been in retaliation for his shooting.

This brings the total deaths to seven. Lechado was shot last night, with his wife (also shot) and kid (uninjured) in the car (two other guys were killed as well last night).

I have more information about the troubles that are likely to brew up in SF's Mission district that I wrote about earlier.

From three different sources (two cops and a member of a Hell's Angels affiliate gang), the number of Hell's Angels and affiliates that will be coming to the area over the next week is expected to be between fifteen and twenty-five thousand.

This will likely have it's "head" on Monday, September 15th. Why? Because that is the date of the funeral for Mark Guardado, the leader of the SF chapter of Hell's Angels who was shot and killed last week.

There have been several shootings every day since the initial incident in the Mission. Not all of these may be related.

I have heard the following, though take this with a grain of salt:

* There has been discussion of a dusk-to-dawn curfew (unlikely, and shot down because of the impact to business)
* Police officers are going to be pulling 18 hour shifts (possible)
* Additional police officers from the surrounding cities and counties are going to be brought in (likely)

Another thing that I got clarification about (and was incorrect on): MS 13 is not "moving into the area." They're already here and have been, but we call them Sureños (this, and not "Sudenos", is apparently the correct spelling).

I was told by both cops and gang members that it "is going to be bad" and to tell my friends who live in the Mission to stay indoors at night over the next week. To wit: "no one is gonna get shot sitting on their ass watching football."

It is advised that you do not wear the color blue over the next week or so as the Sureños claim blue.

I don't want to sound like an alarmist but I'd rather my friends be a little more paranoid and cautious for a week than put into pine boxes forever because they just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.

The leader of the SF branch of the Hell's Angels was shot and killed on Tuesday evening.

According to two of my cop friends, this is a bad, bad thing, as he was killed by some member of the Mongols (another gang) who are closely affiliated with MS 13. The MS 13 peeps don't screw around: they get respect points for flat out murdering cops and the like.

So the expectation is that the Mission is going to flood with members of all three, and that it's going to be a bit bloody, possibly for several months.

So be careful.

Edit: Addendum: The "heavy metal" sign - the throwing the horns - is one of the gang signs used by MS-13. Though they usually throw it horns down, as far as I know.