Judge Postponing BART cop's 3/23 hearing

Here it comes: First, a strange shooting of Oakland police, who are usually wearing lots of armor and are heavily armed, by a "deranged" man who was recently let out of prison. Now, a judge says the preliminary hearing of 3/23/09 of Johannes Mehserle, the BART cop who killed Oscar Grant, will be postponed because of the killings of cops on 3/21/09. No TV show can beat this staging.

With apologies, this story is in the SF Chronicle, 3/22/09 at:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/03/22/BAKD16L5VU.DTL&tsp=1

The 3/23 preliminary hearing, where lots of BART cops were to testify during the week, is now a hearing for postponement to 5/18/09, the week before the first vacation weekend of summer, Memorial Day weekend. It is also the end or practically the end of the school semester, depending on your school. By then, the excuses for postponement will be that the witnesses are on vacation or otherwise not available. Meanwhile, Mehserle is out on bail. Maybe his excuse will be he has to visit his sick grandmother in his native Germany. Then, of course, judges and lawyers have family problems too. After 5 years of postponements, a motion to dismiss for failure to prosecute in a timely manner might be brought. That's American democracy, the stench of hypocrisy and the profound waste of our tax dollars. Let's just abolish all police departments and use the money to take care of the problems in our communities ourselves with job training for decent paying jobs.