BART Police Chief Kenton Rainey and new BART Police Auditor Mark Smith answered questions today from the agency’s Board of Directors about the officer-involved shooting death on the Civic Center station platform on July 3, when a BART policeman shot to death 45-year-old Charles Hill. (The meeting should be archived here later.) Police say Hill was coming toward them with a knife. The only witness to publicly emerge so far told the Bay Citizen that the man was moving slowly, “like Frankenstein.”
Police say a video of the incident exists that they won’t release until they finish interviewing all witnesses.
Yesterday, Smith, the police auditor, talked to KQED’s Cy Musiker about his investigation. Listen to that You can also watch Rainey’s update to the BART Police Civilian Review Board on Tuesday.
Both the civilian board and the police auditor were created in the wake of the Oscar Grant shooting, an incident that is clearly hanging over this latest incident. This week, a raucus, rolling protest of the latest shooting, at several BART stations, caused a major disruption in train service. (Watch video of the protest.)