Update 1:35 p.m: KQED's Stephanie Martin will talk about the BART shooting with Golden Gate University law professor Peter Keane at 5:30 p.m. today. You can listen on the radio at 88.5 FM or online right here.
Earlier post:
The San Francisco Medical Examiner identifed the man shot dead by BART police at the Civic Center station last Sunday as Charles Hill, 45. After the shooting, BART Police Chief Kenton Rainey said the man was wielding a knife and a broken alcohol bottle.
Yesterday, BART police held a press conference about the shooting, which occurred on the station platform. Below is a video of the press conference (transcript here), at which BART Deputy Police Chief Daniel Hartwig said BART would not release a security video of the incident until all witnesses were interviewed. He said no cell phone video of the event has emerged yet.
One witness who has been interviewed, at least by the Bay Citizen, is Myleen Hollero, of San Francisco, who criticized the shooting.
Hollero said that from her view of the incident, police officers should “absolutely not” have shot the man, who she said “just looked like a drunk hippie...”
She said she was getting off the BART train with her bike at Civic Center when she heard glass break. She turned and saw the man across the platform who, she said, was wearing a green tie-dye shirt and had long white hair. She thought he was just “another drunk guy acting up.”
“I heard yelling, and I stopped and I looked again,” said Hollero. “I saw he was interacting with cops and then I was like, ‘S***, those cops have guns out.'”
Hollero said she couldn’t hear what the officers were saying and so didn’t understand the context of the exchange.
But she said she saw the BART cops with their guns drawn and the man moving slowly toward them.
She said the man moved "like Frankenstein.” She said she couldn’t tell if he had a knife.
“Then,” she said, “they shot him."
“I didn’t see who did it,” Hollero continued. “I heard three shots. It made no sense.”
Read the full account at the Bay Citizen.