We Are All Oscar Grant

A essay about the murder of Oscar Grant by BART Police Officer Johannes Mehserle December 1, 2009 in Oakland, California. Mehserle was released from jail earlier than he should have been.....

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On June 12, 2011, a beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon, a diverse crowd of people gathered outside the Fruitvale BART station in Oakland, California to protest the release from prison of BART police officer, Johannes Mehserle, who shot Oscar Grant III January 1, 2009 at the Fruitvale BART Station.  Mehserle was released Monday at exactly 12:01 a.m. after serving eleven months of his two year sentence. The jury determined that Mehserle, 29, was guilty of involuntary manslaughter and using a firearm in the commission of a crime.  Mehserle could have faced a maximum of fourteen years in prison but in his eternal wisdom, Judge Robert Perry sentenced him to two years, which is the minimum sentence for his conviction. On the day of sentencing, Judge Perry threw out the gun enhancement charge, declaring to the jury and courtroom that he was “troubled by the jury’s findings”.

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At the time of the shooting, Grant was lying on the ground of the BART station face down, with his arms behind his back and he was surrounded by at least three other officers.  The incident was captured on the video feature of many cell phone cameras. The BART police handled the situation by closing the doors of the train, moving it on to the next station, and unjustly confiscating peoples’ cell phones, so that the video could not be released to the public.  Fortunately, with the many forms of modern technology that humans now have at their disposal, it is almost impossible to hide the truth of the misdeeds of our public officials, such as our police officers, politicians, and religious personalities. The video was leaked onto YouTube and within a few hours, the video had gone “viral”.

Mehserle has insisted since the beginning that he did not intentionally shoot Oscar Grant.  He claims that he mistook his service weapon, a Glock pistol, for his X26 Taser. This is very odd because those two items are very different and it would not be easy to mistake the sleek grip of a hand-gun for the bulkier feel of a Taser. The manual for the Taser X26 reports that the weapon weighs seven ounces, while the average weight of a Glock pistol is at a minimum over twenty ounces. The really strange and therefore suspicious fact is that most police issued Glocks are a very dark color, usually midnight black, while the Taser X26 has bright yellow markings on its surface and also has a two-digit LED screen.  The difference between the two weapons is a vast chasm where Oscar Grant’s blood pooled and immediately stained Mehserle’s defense of mistaking the weapons in “the heat of the moment”.  Regardless of what was happening, Mehserle was a trained officer that should have been able to keep his wits about him in this type of situation. It is true that there were many passengers on the train at the time of the shooting, but none were on the platform. Three officers shown on the video backed him up and there is no way of knowing how many other officers were in the station at the time. Grant was face down, arms behind his back, possibly handcuffed when Mehserle “accidentally” pulled the trigger.

The injustice of the case brought protesters to the street even before the trial, conviction, and release.  Downtown Oakland erupted in chaos and anarchy the night after the shooting occurred and other violent protests took place throughout the past two years in Oakland. On Sunday, as protestors gathered at the Fruitvale BART station, almost a hundred officers watched the crowd for any signs of trouble. As the Police Helicopters flew through the air, a dozen police motorcycles readied themselves to escort the protest marchers down International Boulevard to the Frank Ogawa Plaza in downtown Oakland and the protesters blocked off the corner of Broadway and 14^th.  Many stores closed early and some even boarded their doors and windows to protect against the damage they had suffered from previous protests.  The only business open in the immediate area was Pizza Man, who did a brisk trade with the hungry protesters. At least ten unmarked units were present, along with many patrol cars.  Undercover police officers floated through the crowd at the rally, obvious with their noticeable ear pieces stuck deep within their ears.  The police expected the worst, even as the speakers and family members asked for peace and nonviolence during the march.  The rally and March did end peacefully, with only one arrest made. The people made their voice heard and demanded justice for Oscar Grant legitimately.

A family from Stockton, California also spoke to the crowd Sunday afternoon. Their son, James Rivera, Jr. was shot and killed by Stockton Police Officers Eric Azarvand, a fourteen-year department veteran; Gregory Dunn, who has been with the department for eight years and San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Deputy John T. Nesbitt, who has eleven years at the San Joaquin Sheriff’s Department. Rivera, 16, of Stockton, had already escaped from the San Joaquin County Juvenile Hall, where he was being held on felony charges. While on the run, Rivera was suspected of committing new crimes and when the Stockton Police spotted him in North Stockton driving a minivan, the police and Rivera became entangled in a high speed chase. The officers intentionally caused a collision and Rivera lost control of the van. It slammed into the garage of a residence, which the police quickly surrounded, and when the van began to reverse out of the hole in the garage, the officers opened fire into the back of the vehicle. James Rivera, Jr. was struck many times and died because the police officers said that they “feared for their lives”.  Neighbors of the house where the shooting took place claimed that the officers had an M16 assault rifle with armor piercing bullets at the scene. Stockton Police Department spokesman Pete Smith denied that armor piercing bullets were used. ”There’s absolutely no validity to that,” said Smith. “An M-16 rifle was not fired at that vehicle or used at that scene.”
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This incident and many more throughout the State of California has certainly brought to light the Gestapo tactics employed by the police. The Central Valley is an area where many shootings have occurred, with little or no repercussions for the officers. An organizational speaker at the protest rally was quoted as saying “they operate by being blue by day and white by night”, implying that the police sponsored and participated in violence against innocent citizens.  The family of James Rivera, Jr and the family of Oscar Grant III have both filed civil lawsuits against the police, in an effort to find Justice that has been denied to them so far.

I do believe the shooting of Oscar Grant was an accident; there was no premeditation on the part of Mehserle and I sincerely doubt that he went to work that night, New Year’s Eve, with the intention of killing a young black male, but the tragedy of this story is the immediate lies and the cover-up.  Mehserle had his pistol out because that is what officers are trained to do. I am not sure why the safety of his pistol was not engaged at the time of the shooting or even why he had his finger on the trigger because when you are pointing a gun at someone, you never touch the trigger unless you intend to use it.

An innocent person shot by the police is not new.  Despite what color you are, if you are poor or just happen to make a horrible, stupid mistake, there is constant, continuous police harassment.  A sad truth is that some, but not all, of the police are not there to help, as they claim, but rather to judge whether or not you belong in the system. Once in the system, certain aspects of your life are basically ruined. You can overcome it sometimes, but many folks climb to the top, only to slide right back down, a product of their environment.  I am white, but throughout my life, most of my friends are people of color.  I grew up in Stockton, where the police are notorious for shooting first and asking questions later.  I have witnessed horrible things the police have done to my friends. An old roommate of mine in West Oakland was once pulled over at a liquor store and he exited out of his car before he realized the police were there.  A woman police officer ran over to him with her gun pointed at him, screaming that he needed to get back in his car or she would shoot him.  She then dragged him out of his car, pulled down his pants and boxers in the middle of rush hour traffic on College Avenue, informing him at the same time that he was lucky that she was not a rookie because she would have probably shot him and added she would have been justified.

I happen to carry a KA-Bar knife that hangs from my belt. I wear this knife every day; it is sort of a good luck charm and in California, it is completely legal to carry as long as it is in full view, which is how I have always carried it. My wearing it sort of tests any police officer who sees me as to whether or not my civil rights will be upheld. One day a while ago, I stepped outside of my house to speak to several Stockton Police Officers who were there because of a possible domestic incident. Walking toward the four police officers, I voiced a greeting but before I was through with the sentence, they had pulled their guns out and told me to put my hands in the air. The police then detained me, taking the knife, and cuffing my hands behind my back, all the while informing me that they could have shot me right then and there and that they would have been completely justified. My mother was a witness that I had done nothing wrong, nor had I even reached for the knife. I argued with the officers about this and they all insisted that shooting me would have been within their rights of deadly force, even though the knife was legal and not in any way concealed.

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This incident astonished me and proved that the mentality of the police is twisted and maliciously deformed when it comes to the rights of the innocent citizens that they are here to “Serve and Protect”. I do not find it surprising that many Police Departments have removed the decal on their patrol cars that used to say “to Protect and Serve” because that is no longer their intention.  In that, at least they are being honest.

A.N.F.

June 15, 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QOuIYCo9qc&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncNXjd-hoBA&feature=related

Reviews

[quinfinn]

you know, every time i read of or hear about an incident like this it makes me livid.
having been "in the system" as you say, i know how people are treated once a cop decides that your life is worth less than his and decides to further downgrade your existence. no wonder the good people of Oakland harbor so much rage against the machine.(other than the fact that my Raiders have forgotten how to win) the only thing that the LA riots following the whole Rodney King issue taught the political machine was to hide it better when they f**k up. i have been saying for 40 years now (i'm 58) that there is going to come a time in this country when discipline of the public is going to go right out the window and anarchy will reign until the machine has been disabled. you have every reason to be fiercely proud of this write! oh yes...one more thing... they haven't removed "to protect and to serve" from their cars. they have just moved the printing inside the doors to remind them that they are there to protect and serve themselves.

[Andrew N. Farrens]

GREAT REVIEW!

[lee von cleef]

three officers,abq. nm.shot a drunk cowboy , he had taken his boots off to walk the line for them, must of got lippy too,How did three officers let him get to a gun in the truck?no respect he got ,7 shots into him,cuffed him, hands and ankles,dead on the curb,A good father, had a good wife, ranch,just couldn't quit drinking and driving, he had done it his whole life , now cuffed and dead.

[Ees]

I have seen, so many times, the police abusing their power. Sometimes I don't blame them personally, I blame the system and the training or the lack of training that they've had. What if you dealt with criminals 90% of the time, at some point you would see everybody as a dangerous criminal? There was a protest here a few years ago, completely peaceful. I knew a number of people who participated. The city was dead against the protest as they are against all protests and decided to use that day to test the fire trucks or something. The cops tried to get the protesters out of the way in a rush, because somebody higher up had told them that it was for the safety of those protesting. Several younger cops flipped out. They attacked people, including a young woman with her four year old on her back. When they investigated the incident later, it was revealed that the police who overreacted were recent veterans, very young and new on the force with a shorter training time and no adjustment period. I blame the system there. They were stupid kids. They were used to war. (On a side note, I was not in any way a supporter of that particular protest, but I am a supporter of everyone's right to protest all of the time!)

"nd unjustly confiscating peoples’ cell phones, so that the video could not be released to the public."- here's the thing about that being unjust, is maybe the cops weren't thinking about how it would look, in the moment, some of them may not have had a full understanding of what was happening yet. Maybe they were worried about that dude's family. Maybe they didn't want his mother to have to watch her son dying. That's valid... in a way. I am not saying that that was why they did it or not, it is a possibility.

I think that when you write, you should be careful not to lean so far to one side that you ignore some middle ground all together. I am not saying that YOU should be in the middleground. YOU should stand where you stand and strongly, but when you write, perhaps anticipate what some softer people may see as wholes and see if you can fill them in, if that makes sense?

Isn't is possible that a cop who wasn't trained as well as he should have, have blood rushing, caught in the moment, flustered and grabbed the wrong one. When I was in a car accident my first instinct was to roll (the old fashioned type to) window down. Sometimes you don't know what you are going to do. If it is true that he was handcuffed there wouldn't be need to tase or shoot him and officers wouldn't need to back him up that way. Something doesn't make sense. Videos can be misleading. I am not arguing that something very wrong happened. I have seen cops act inappropriately first hand, but what would the motivation be to kill a man somewhere where so many people could see. Their cops, they could make it look real a million other ways.

I think that you could have gotten your points across a little bit better if you organized this essay a little differently. like:
Start with the peaceful protest. Backtrack to explain the situation. Include the paragraph where you say that you beleive the shooting was an accident, but that the cover-up tactics were fucked up. That lends credibility to where you tell it from the place where it is more harsh. Bring that up towards the top. That perspective would keep people reading. Then tell the other story about the kid. Then bring it to talking about how the police suck.

I think the cops in our cities are more scared than the people. I was once pulled over in a car with my little brother in a rough neighborhood. The reason we were pulled over. The assumed we were there buying drugs, being young and white- we must not have belonged. We were using a short cut to get to a gas station that was open 24 hours a day. Parker was dragged out of the car, handcuffed immediately. He asked what he was being arrested for, Cop had his gun out, "Nothin' Yet!" he barked. People on the hill came down started taunting the officers, one lady was asking for help with a man who was threatening her "baby daddy" she kept screaming, "He say he gonna kill my baby daddy." The cop said he didn't care. Stevie and I were pulled out and searched. The car was emptied and searched. A dude came down from the hill trying to sell us heroin while the cops were talking to Parker. The told him to wait until they were done. (seriously) and, well, this story goes on and on and on. But the cops were bazarre and fucked up and the only ticket issued was for the distance of Parker's license plate being too close to the road. It was a tiberon, so that is just the way that they are made... A customer of mine was pulled over. The police lady asked for his license. His wallet was under the seat. He reached down and was met with a gun in the face. He didn't even think of the way that this would look. These things happen hundreds of times a day in every city and every town in the country. We live in a place where the cops and the people are in constant fear of each other and that creates sometimes horrifying situations that nobody means....


Interesting piece the concepts are nothing that I haven't heard before, but you tell them with your own voice and these are stories that need to be out there as many times as it takes to start riling people up. People need to get upset, they need to make moves.

[Dayran]

It's hard to point at anything here that is clearly black and white. To administer to a country that allows for liberal experience and learning, including the right to bear arms, takes a special kind of person to run police over the lot. My inclination is to view the overall perspective and in connection with incidences like Oscar, I would satisfy myself on the details of the report and file it under ' and so it seems.'

[gombeggar]

well said

[de_maruf]

i had to little prob to read it

[Andrew N. Farrens]

A problem?

[MOON]

Interesting who police the police so to speak . The mentality of the training , the reaction instead of prevention and the us them mentality means protect and serve is not the motive. All over the world increasingly police are behaving like thugs.

[Chris]

Tazzed anywhere - even to death; shot and killed; beaten senseless or to death; clearly assaulted - physically, verbally, and even in-your-face motioning meant to provoke ANY response so the beating and degrading will continue. Actions to ensure obediance and obeisance. It's been a nationwide tragedy swept-away and covered-up. Continuing Incidents of both fatal and non-fatal violence and judgement orchestrated and perpetrated by those empowered to define and enforce our coding of justice seem to overshadow the efforts of those that believe in "due process".

No Police represent the law when they dispence their understanding of what judgement and punishment is to be. Such "ends" do not justify their "means". They don't protect nor help, and in the end they bring the anarchy they were created and then empowered to prevent.