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Involuntary police manslaughter caused riots in Oakland
Published: 10 July, 2010, 00:59
Edited: 10 July, 2010, 21:12
A worker with the Downtown Oakland Association sweeps the sidewalk near graffiti that reads " You can't shoot us all" outside a drug store in Oakland, Calif. , Friday, July 9, 2010
(6.6Mb) embed videoTAGS: Conflict, Crime, Scandal, Accident, Human rights, Law, USA
Nearly 1,000 people took part in angry protests in the US city of Oakland after a ruling against a white policeman who killed an unarmed black man.
A Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) police officer in Oakland, Johannes Mehserle, escaped a murder conviction, instead being found guilty of manslaughter – the softest sentence available, which caused the uproar.
The policeman claimed he mistakenly drew his gun instead of a taser, and shot 22-year-old Oscar Grant III in the back on a crowded train platform.
Alessandro Tinonga, a contributor to Socialistworker.org, says there are a number of reasons why this case is so controversial. First of all the shooting itself was registered on five different surveillance cameras, as well as a number of passengers who eyewitnessed the incident, and also because of the racial context of the killing and the fact that Grant was unarmed.
“The trial itself was very controversial – there were no blacks in the jury, the trial itself was moved from Alameda County to Los Angeles,” Tinonga pointed out. “And the defense attorney used the argument that because of the history of racial violence and police brutality, Mehserle cannot actually receive a fair trial.”
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2 comments
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I am from Oakland, born and raised, and I have to say this isn't new. In the past, it was common to see this everywhere. The nation only knows NOW because of the media. Back then, you'd only see it on local news.
What is not mentioned in the article is the fact that the suspect was hand cuffed behind his back, on his stomach with the cop kneeling on the guys back. While he is completely subdued the cop pulls out his pistol and puts a bullet through the guys back, it ricochets off the pavement and hits the suspect in the chest , tearing through his heart and killing him. In addition to "accidentally" shooting him, the cop and his friends confiscated all cameras and cell phone recordings of the incident from the passengers on the platform. Fortunately, passengers on a train across from the platform captured video of the event. It is quite clear from the video clips that I have seen that the officer shot the perp / victim in cold blood. Look it up for yourself...
Some groups seem to riot when court verdicts don't seem to go their way. The death of this young man was sad, but it seems like a genuine mistake by the officer. To the person who commented that it was "murder" for a policeman to shoot a suspect armed with a broomstick who attacked an officer. Was it a justifiable shooting? I don't know as I wasn't there and neither was he. Police are trained to react quickly to immediate threats. You don't attack an armed policeman with a weapon of any kind. Otherwise, you may get what's coming to you. If the suspect would attack an officer with a weapon that could cause death or serious injury who could claim that he wasn't a threat to anyone else? The officer had the right to defend himself, plain and simple, just like any other person. He had the right to return safely home that night to his family.