Officer fatally shoots smoking refugee outside San Jose Starbucks

[Ivo Skoric]

Thanks. I am going to print that out and give it to every cop who 
tries to write me a 'not wearing seat belt' ticket. Zaim was right: 
if this country has any pretense left on being accepted as the 
champion of freedom, then it cannot continue to outlaw acts, 
performed in public space, that can harm only the perpetrator: 
smoking, not wearing seat-belt, etc. Then, Starbucks already got that 
stygma of the yuppie-place. Maybe, the anti-globalists had it right 
from the beginning. To get cops to shoot a customer who smokes 
cigarettes in front of their place? Far out. 

This is the first time that brave U.S. police officers shot an 
unarmed Bosnian, a survivor of a concentration camp. His emotional 
over-reaction to enforcement of authority is characteristic of men 
traumatized by the experience of torture and prison camps. In New 
York, NYPD, at least, sent their officers to talk with community 
groups like Raccoon on how to handle refugee population from Bosnia, 
with respect to their past victmization, if they find some of them 
breaking the law. San Jose PD maybe did not have that wisdom.

I, also, get particularly annoyed when my car is towed, impounded, 
and potentially sold. A couple of years ago I got Parking Violations 
Bureau downtown startled, when I threw one of their monitors of the 
table, while they just wanted to be of service to me by stealing and 
then legally selling my car. And there are un-necessary times when 
that happens. When it serves to no other end but to patch a hole in 
the city's budget. 

ivo

On 27 Sep 2004 at 16:18, Andras Riedlmayer wrote:

The Associated Press
Mon, Sep. 27, 2004

Officer fatally shoots smoking refugee outside San Jose Starbucks

 SAN JOSE, Calif. - An officer who fatally shot a Bosnian refugee who
 was smoking a cigarette outside a Starbucks coffee shop acted in
self-defense after the man attacked him with a chair and his fists,
police said.

 Officer Donald Guess was having a coffee break Sunday inside the 
cafe in the 1300 block of Winchester Boulevard when an employee 
complained about the behavior of a customer who was smoking outside, 
police said.

 The man - identified by friends and relatives as Zaim Bojcic, 40, 
who moved to the United States 10 years ago from Bosnia - was sitting 
with three other men. When Guess approached, Bojcic allegedly became
confrontational and threw a patio chair, hitting the officer.

 The officer reported that he fired his taser, which had little 
effect on Bojcic, who allegedly began punching and kicking.

 The officer then "pulled out his gun while being beaten and fired
several shots," said San Jose Police Sgt. Steve Dixon. Bojcic was
taken by ambulance to Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, where he was
pronounced dead.

 Guess, a nine-year veteran, received treatment at an area hospital
 for facial cuts and a possible concussion. He will be on paid
administrative leave during an investigation by the San Jose Police
Department's homicide unit, the Santa Clara County's district
attorney's office and the Independent Police Auditor.

 Relatives and friends of Bojcic described him as a quiet but
 increasingly troubled survivor of a Croat-run concentration camp in 
Dretelj.

 According to the Contra Costa Times, he was arrested in 2002 for
 smashing the windows of a patrol car and attacking police officers 
with lumber.
He had just learned that his impounded car had been sold. He then
spent a year at Napa State Hospital, which treats the mentally ill,
said his cousin, Sejad Premilovac.

 Several Starbucks customers told the San Francisco Chronicle that
 Bojcic was a regular. They also said the store's new management had 
recently been cracking down on smoking around the cafe.