Anita Gay to Abner Louima?

Well, it turns out that history is somehow trying to repeat itself between Brooklyn and Berkeley ten-and-a-half years and three-thousand miles distant, with the police shooting of Anita Gay a block-and-a-half-away from me.


Some of the current news reports are at the SFGate's (the San Francisco Chronicle's) 'Berkeley officer shoots, kills woman with knife' and at radio station KCBS 740AM's 'Woman Shot to Death by Berkeley Police Officer'
The respective webpage/URL's are
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/17/BARUV4CJQ.DTL
-and-
http://www.kcbs.com/Woman-Shot-to-Death-by-Berkeley-Police-Officer/1669328


From these news stories, it seems questionable whether the police shooting and killing of Anita Gay (in the name of self-defense) was entirely justifiable.


This brings to mind the big newsworthy incident when I was living on 132 Parkville Ave in Midwood(Brooklyn).... my residence EXACTLY(!) a-block-and-a-half from the 70th Precinct where the police brutality incident occurred. As reported in the Wikipedia piece 'Abner Louima' at URL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abner_Louima,
Haitian immigrant Abner Louima was arrested at an East Flatbush nightclub, maybe 15-20 minutes away from where my housemate A.S. and I were both rooming.


I recall that my parents were visiting me that week and that we were driving South on Ocean Parkway approaching 18th Ave near the Lawrence Ave angled-offshoot streets a day or two after the incident, when the news of the incident and the gathering of an ad hoc protest at the 70th Precinct broke on the radio. I seem to recall that we were stuck in traffic due to more police arriving at the scene to help restore order in the chaos at the precinct that followed the incident itself. IIRC also, I think the pro-police news claimed at first that the officers needed to commit their subduing tactics due to Louima resisting arrest, struggling in the bathroom and fighting back. Soon after this though, at just about the time when my parents were leaving from visiting me, the radio and newsprint news starting more clearly exposing the true brutality and bestiality of the officers who arrested and tried to subdue Louima.... the protests and community outrage were getting much much stronger then. See this above 'Abner Louima' Wikipedia writing for more detailed descriptions of what the arresting officers actually performed on Louima.
Within several weeks after my parents left NYC from their visit, there was a huge outcry of several thousand Haitians against the greater NYPD's role in the incident, this outcry possibly having connections to the Irrelevent Al Sharpton. Thank goodness the truth came out and that the worst officer-offenders were tried, sentenced, and booted off the force.


This Berkeley neighbor similarly hopes that the current confusion and [perhaps] orchestrated-chaos of the shooting of Anita Gay will get more play in the news and in local conversations, will lead to outrage as the facts become inarguably clearer by third party investigation, and will possibly lead as warranted to the successful prosecution of the Berkeley Police officers found guilty in this shooting.

Anita Gay similarly accused in the minds of the arresting officer(s) just as Abner Louima was!!??