{"article":{"id":77386,"heading":"PHOTOS: Justice for Yousuf Mollah!","author":"Heidi Werntz","created":"2003-08-16 23:08:26","modified":"2005-08-15 01:38:53","last_modified":"Mon, 15 Aug 2005 08:38:53","article":"<b>THERE WILL BE NO PEACE UNTIL THERE IS JUSTICE!<\/b>\n","contact":"","link":"","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","summary":"Protestors gathered in front of Parker Center in downtown Los Angeles today, August 15, 2003, to protest and demand an investigation into the killing of Yousuf Mollah by the Los Angeles Police Department.","numcomment":14,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/2003\/08\/yousuf_justice01.jpg","filesize":"102.3 kibibytes","article_url":"\/news\/2003\/08\/77386.php","image":{"original":"\/uploads\/2003\/08\/yousuf_justice01.jpg","small":"\/uploads\/2003\/08\/yousuf_justice01.jpgthumb.jpg","medium":"\/uploads\/2003\/08\/yousuf_justice01.jpgmid.jpg"}},"attachments":[{"id":77387,"heading":"Photo","article":"","author":"Heidi Werntz","parent_id":77386,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","created":"2003-08-16 23:08:26","modified":"2005-08-15 01:38:53","fileurl":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2003\/08\/yousuf_justice02.jpg","image":{"original":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2003\/08\/yousuf_justice02.jpg"}},{"id":77388,"heading":"Photo","article":"","author":"Heidi Werntz","parent_id":77386,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","created":"2003-08-16 23:08:26","modified":"2005-08-15 01:38:53","fileurl":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2003\/08\/yousuf_justice03.jpg","image":{"original":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2003\/08\/yousuf_justice03.jpg"}},{"id":77389,"heading":"Photo","article":"","author":"Heidi Werntz","parent_id":77386,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","created":"2003-08-16 23:08:26","modified":"2005-08-15 01:38:53","fileurl":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2003\/08\/yousuf_justice04.jpg","image":{"original":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2003\/08\/yousuf_justice04.jpg"}},{"id":77390,"heading":"Photo","article":"","author":"Heidi Werntz","parent_id":77386,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","created":"2003-08-16 23:08:26","modified":"2005-08-15 01:38:53","fileurl":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2003\/08\/yousuf_justice05.jpg","image":{"original":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2003\/08\/yousuf_justice05.jpg"}},{"id":77391,"heading":"Photo","article":"","author":"Heidi Werntz","parent_id":77386,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","created":"2003-08-16 23:08:26","modified":"2005-08-15 01:38:54","fileurl":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2003\/08\/yousuf_justice06.jpg","image":{"original":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2003\/08\/yousuf_justice06.jpg"}},{"id":77392,"heading":"Photo","article":"","author":"Heidi Werntz","parent_id":77386,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","created":"2003-08-16 23:08:26","modified":"2005-08-15 01:38:54","fileurl":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2003\/08\/yousuf_justice07.jpg","image":{"original":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2003\/08\/yousuf_justice07.jpg"}}],"comments":[{"id":77398,"heading":"director","article":"my fellow americans:\r\nthe ugly face of facism has come out from the shadows. And under the name of nationalism and homeland security  our rights and freedom is seaking to destroy. \r\nthe internet is no longer safe, freedom of speach is dead and the citisens right to bear arms and fight governamental ijustices have been abolishe. I hope you all awake before it is to late and they come for you,but no one will be there to speak for you. Even expressing myself , puts me in peril.\r\ngod bless you all","author":"goyo berke","parent_id":77386,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-08-17 00:09:49","modified":"2003-08-17 00:09:49","fileurl":""},{"id":77400,"heading":"Waste of time","article":"What a waste of time.\r\n\r\nBut then I guess these demonstrators don't put any value on their time. Unemployed losers are like that.\r\n\r\nHere's the real deal on this:\r\n\r\nLOS ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT\r\n     PRESS RELEASE\r\n     Monday, July 28, 2003\r\n     \r\nLos Angeles \u2013 On July 27, 2003, at about 6:40 PM, Hollywood Patrol Officer Alma Andrade, 29 years of age and seven years with the LAPD,  and her partner responded to a radio call in the 900 block of\u00a0 N. Serrano Avenue regarding a male adult exposing himself to children. A further update indicated the suspect was in apartment 120 and was armed with a knife.\r\n\r\nThe officers knocked on the door of the apartment. The suspect,  subsequently identified as Yousuf Mollah, 32 years of age, opened the door  and stepped into the apartment building hallway holding a large kitchen knife. Officer Andrade drew her service pistol and ordered Mollah to drop the knife. Mollah failed to comply with Andrade\u2019s commands and pointed the knife tip at the officers and lunged at them. Officer Andrade, fearing for her life and the life of her partner, fired one bullet from her service      pistol, striking Mollah in the abdomen. Mollah fell to the floor, crawled into the apartment and slammed the door shut.\r\n\r\nThe LAPD SWAT team was called to try and extract the armed and barricaded suspect from the apartment. SWAT negotiators repeatedly advised Mollah to come out of the apartment and surrender. When Mollah failed to respond, SWAT officers fired tear gas into the apartment and breached the front door. The SWAT officers found Mollah unconscious and not breathing. Los Angeles Fire Department paramedics responded and pronounced Mollah dead at the scene.  Mollah had sustained a single gunshot wound to the abdomen. A 13-inch knife was found on the floor next to Mollah. No officers were injured as a result      of this incident.\r\n\r\nThis investigation is ongoing and is being handled by Critical Incident Investigation Division and Robbery Homicide Division.\r\n\r\nThis advisory was prepared by Lieutenant John Pasquariello, Acting      Officer in Charge, Media Relations Section, 213-485-3586.","author":"Bush Admirer","parent_id":77386,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-08-17 00:15:44","modified":"2013-11-11 00:24:59","fileurl":""},{"id":77533,"heading":"The situation was not so simple","article":"Bush Admirer, I don't suppose that you noticed that the associated article is in factual agreement with everything in the Los Angeles Police Department press release.  Everyone agrees on the chronology of events; what is under debate is the police officers' judgment of the threat Yousef posed.  Yes, it was a bad idea for Yousef to answer the door to the police with a large knife but the claim that he lunged at the police officers could easily have been the product of what seemed to Officer Andrade to be a tense and potentially dangerous situation.  In retrospect, Yousef may well have been holding the knife simply because he was preparing dinner.  However, the police officers would have been unaware that this was the case and as a result concluded that he was dangerous.  This assessment would most likely have colored their interpretations of the remainder of the encounter, thus causing them to see a lunge where none in fact occured.  Thus, it is entirely compatible with the available evidence that Yousef posed no actual threat to the police officers.  The police should not be prepared to handle what may be a misunderstood situation with potentially lethal force.  Even if Yousef had been attempting to harm the police officers, pepper spray or billy clubs would have been sufficient to neutralize the threat, and is a much more appropriate response to the possible but unconfirmed threat of a man answering his door while holding a knife around dinner time.  If instead of a knife he had been holding a gun, it would be a different situation altogether; in that case, I would agree that the police would have been justified in the conclusion that he was a threat and also would have had no other method to handle the situation other than the use of lethal force.  However, this was not the case, so the lethal force is unjustified, particularly if further investigation reveals that the neighbors in fact did not hear the police officers issue a warning before firing.","author":"Stasis","parent_id":77386,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-08-18 06:17:05","modified":"2003-08-18 06:17:05","fileurl":""},{"id":77542,"heading":"**","article":"one less scumbag. This guy was showing his dick to children.","author":"**","parent_id":77386,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-08-18 10:58:06","modified":"2003-08-18 10:58:06","fileurl":""},{"id":77549,"heading":"A response","article":"You apparently are not familiar with cognitive distortion effects which are particularly prevalent in stressful situations.  I am not saying, nor did I ever say, that he did or did not lunge at the officers.  Instead I am pointing out that there is a reasonable possibility that the officers, due to what was obviously a stressful situation could have either misperceived some other motion as a lunge at the time or later distorted the account of events into a lunge.  The claim that the situation would have been one of great mental stress for the officers is absolutely indisputable because one did end up firing, not something that happens in a nonstressful situation.  In any event, you are making the unwarrented assumption that the police in fact announced themselves as LAPD when they knocked.  This would most likely have been the case if they had been there to arrest; however, if they were just there to ask some questions as a followup to a report of misconduct (in this case of a particularly nasty sort) they may have just knocked.  The lack of such facts makes it difficult to assess whether the police acted reasonably or not.  As it is the LAPD's interest to resolve this quietly, there is a reasonable chance that such details would never come to light  without an independent investigation.  \r\n\r\nOne other side point: under the chronology of events given by police, the police pulled their firearms before Yousef made any threatening (or supposedly threatening) actions with the knife.  It would have been at this stage that the police began to overreact.  \r\n\r\nOne interesting detail to note: only a single shot was fired at Yousef.  This means that while one officer felt Yousef posed a danger requiring lethal response at that particular moment while the other officer (assuming the officer was prepared to respond) did not.  If, in fact, a lunge did occur, we would have expected both officers to fired roughly simultaneously so long as the lunge had the potential to do serious harm.  If, instead, the lunge was a mere congnitive distortion effect at the time or afterwards in the mind of the police officer who fired, we would not expect both officers to fire.  Thus, we can conclude that the officers disagreed in their assessment of the threat Yousef posed.","author":"Stasis","parent_id":77386,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-08-18 13:30:41","modified":"2003-08-18 13:30:41","fileurl":""},{"id":77551,"heading":"PS","article":"I would like to point out that I personally think that Yousef did a very stupid thing in answering the door bearing a 13 inch knife and that there is a reasonable chance the police acted appropriately in firing on him.  However, I have been trying to point out that some very minor perturbations on the interpretation of events brings in doubt as to the propriety of police actions.  As a result, in cases such as this, review is needed to ensure that the police did not make an error, because if they did, a crime has been committed.  If they didn't no crime has been committed.  Generally, fair institutions of justice are seperate from the individuals and institutions they are judging.  If they are not, biases begin to creep into any judgment, and even if they don't, it is easy for outsiders to misperceive this as happening.  Therefore, these case should be investigated by an outside authority to deal with both problems; to make sure the public is satisfied as to the justice of the decision and to make sure that the dictates of justice are in fact satisfied.  Consequently, since my judgment of what occured differs from my judgment of what might reasonably been thought to have occured, I think the situation demands such an outside investigation.","author":"Stasis","parent_id":77386,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-08-18 13:50:26","modified":"2003-08-18 13:50:26","fileurl":""},{"id":77935,"heading":"fear factory","article":"the cops are scared and the people are scared \nViolence is the solution to all problems, don't believe me?  Didn't  you see SWAT?  Fear and how it controls us along well mapped pathways as we are driven with the rest of the herd is an old tune of the Piper. \nThis is a great market for security systems and private security forces.\nPrison labor for private investment and the police as the domestic occupational armies of royalty.  The serfs are angry.","author":"Billions Moron this War","parent_id":77386,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-08-20 12:22:10","modified":"2003-08-20 12:22:10","fileurl":""},{"id":77937,"heading":"scared","article":"&quot;There is nothing to fear but fear itself.&quot;","author":"FDR","parent_id":77386,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-08-20 12:26:36","modified":"2003-08-20 12:26:36","fileurl":""},{"id":78240,"heading":"check this out","article":"http:\/\/stolenlives.org\/read\/index.php?action=show&section=area_los_angeles.xml&display=LOS+ANGELES&area=19","author":"llll","parent_id":77386,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-08-21 18:06:20","modified":"2003-08-21 18:06:20","fileurl":""},{"id":78287,"heading":"check this out too","article":"police brutality thread:\r\n\r\nhttp:\/\/la.indymedia.org\/news\/2002\/10\/20519_comment.php","author":"lllll","parent_id":77386,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-08-21 21:08:45","modified":"2003-08-21 21:09:56","fileurl":""}]}