Oakland settles lawsuit for $1.2 million (over SWAT flash-bang grenade)

[alp227]

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

(10-07) 12:18 PDT OAKLAND -- The city of Oakland has agreed to pay $1.2 million to settle a lawsuit filed by a woman who suffered third-degree burns when a "flash-bang" grenade thrown by a police officer on the city's SWAT team exploded near her during a raid.

Nicole White suffered burns over 11 percent of her body and was permanently disfigured as a result of the incident, which happened during a search of the home she was visiting on Douglas Avenue in East Oakland on Oct. 31, 2008.

White, now 31, accused police of needlessly using an "extreme level of force" when they lobbed the grenade into the house.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/10/07/BA201FOTKQ.DTL

[earcandle]

1. How sick. I think out cops are ex-contractors trained to behave badly in the Middle East and don't

know where they are and are in dire need of therapy. 

We should have a rule that no contractors, no veterans can be
peace officers.
Too dangerous now.  

[DustyJoe]

2. Gawd

Talk about lumping all the veterans in a horrible light because of one incident. Veterans make great cops, I was one and 'gasp' didn't shoot, taser or flash-bang even one person. But I did pull a few people out of mangled wrecked cars, arrested quite a few DWI's before they caused more of those accidents and saved a lot of battered women by talking them into being taken to a womens shelter when I arrested their loving significant others for beating the crap out of them. And guess what ? More then 60% of the police force I was in were veterans just like me, married, kids and enforcing the law. So this blanket condemnation is blatantly unjust and unfair as any condemnation of any group of people for the actions of a few bad apples. Whew ! got that off my chest.

[earcandle]

3. Were you a contractor or an enlisted man? And when were you in? At one time our

military honored the Geneva Convention and did not kill at
random or for fun, or automatically and apologize later.

If you are from an earlier group, my comments do not include
those vets.  Only the contractors in service since the Gulf
war, and all of the other 737 contracting companies in all 132
countries paid to kill, rape, plunder in our name.