Police Murder in Oakland
First thing you gotta understand is that Oakland has more unsolved murders then you can shake a stick at and the police don’t do shit. Mayor Dellums, who ran on a “progressive” platform and built his election campaign on the support of all the various lefty community organizations does even less, he’s far too busy spending taxpayer money to fly to Vegas and go gambling to actually, ya know, do his fucking job. So when BART Police shoot an unarmed man who’s laying face down on the ground in the back in full view of a crowd of onlookers, some of whom just happen to be holding video camera’s, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that folks here decided it was time to get out in the streets and say “enough is enough”.
Video of the actual shooting from the Mercury News.
and a second video from the tv news
Oscar Grant, the victim, was 22 years old and lived in Hayward. He was in the Lakeshore BART station (in Oakland) when a fight broke out, from the news coverage it looks like he wasn’t even involved in the fight but “fit the description” (young black male) and when the cops came (the BART Police, not the OPD) they grabbed him, threw him face down on the ground to arrest him, and then – inexplicably – shot him in the back instead and killed him. It’s all there on the video. Check Indymedia and SFGate for more info.
Oscar’s family is pushing to have the cop charged with Murder but is being ignored by the Police department who, unsurprisingly, refuse to arrest one of their own without explicit instructions to do so from higher up. The Mayor’s assistant issued a form statement and did not promise any action. The cop who did the shooting quit the force and thus avoided having to face any internal review or disciplinary action. As of this writing, no arrests or any legal action by the authorities has taken place. So this fucker killed an unarmed man in front of dozens of witnesses and on video and walked away with no consequences of any kind. If the pigs won’t prosecute him for murder under those kinds of circumstances, what are the chances for the other victims of police violence to get justice? This is a blank check from City Hall for the police to terrorize and murder citizens with no fear of repercussions. And, unsurprisingly, that’s exactly what’s happening.
In response to the murder, there was a protest in Downtown Oakland today. I got a call around 7pm-ish saying shit was going down and headed out the door. When I got there at 7:30 there were maybe 400 people in a big crowd at Broadway & 14th totally boxed in by the police and another 80 or so outside the police lines who were cut off from the protest, based on people’s comments it sounded like most of the people outside had just been walking down the street and stopped by the cops who had shutdown car and foot traffic. They were waiting for things to disperse so they could continue walking home (or wherever they were going) but were universally supportive of the protesters. After about 45 minutes the police started putting on their gas masks and taking out big sticks and forced the crowd down 14th street away from Broadway but maintained the police line on Broadway so no one could follow, and then set up police blockades on 13th and 15th so there was at least a block distance between the mass of protestors and any witnesses in order to ensure that no one would be able to document their actions. My man C, who was in the crowd, reports that they then charged into the crowd and started grabbing and beating people. It’s unclear whether they actually used gas or pepper spray on the crowd but they definitely used their sticks and their feet – One girl in her early 20′s had a cop grab her by the hair and throw her to the ground where 3 more cops started kicking and beating her. Rather then taking that passively, the crowd exploded and started fighting back. In the chaos at least one storefront was smashed and possibly some cars damaged as well. C managed to get away and ducked inside a nearby shop, the shopkeeper (a friend) let him in before shutting and locking the door and closing the security gate.
Summary: Police refuse to do anything about violent crime that’s tearing apart our community and instead shoot an unarmed man in full view of multiple witnesses and video cameras. Police brass and city officials ignore the murder and do nothing. Citizens protest. Police then divert hundreds of officers (when they claim that the reason they let murders go unsolved is because they just don’t have enough cops or resources) to intimidate and brutalize citizens for exercising their fundamental human rights to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly.
Land of the Free my ass.
Posted: January 7th, 2009 under community, news, race & racism.
Comments: 4
Comments
Comment from Michael
Time: January 8, 2009, 12:53 am
Are you really so ignorant that you don’t understand that Oscar was killed by a BART cop, not the Oakland Police? The OPD had nothing to do with this, and I’ll bet most of their officers are embarrassed by what that BART cop did. This isn’t an Oakland issue, dude. Get your facts straight.
Oh, and thanks to you and all your buddies for trashing my city and neighbors’ cars and storefronts. You really showed The Man who’s in charge now.
Comment from lynx
Time: January 8, 2009, 4:23 am
michael,
way to go with the name calling. very mature.
Yeah, I know he was killed by the BART cops. And I know it was the OPD that attacked a nonviolent protest without provocation turning it into a low-scale riot. It wasn’t my choice or the choice of the people in the main crowd to end up on a residential side street, they were herded there by police attempting to isolate them from any potential witnesses.
Personally, I didn’t trash anything (it’s my city too, ya know) and it sucks that some of our neighbors had their cars damaged. It’s not their fault that a police riot ended up on their block or that people reacted the way they did when the cops charged in. Scared and angry people do dumb things, that doesn’t excuse it, but it’s a fact. It’s also a fact that if the cops hadn’t gone storm trooper on the crowd for no good reason people would have had a peaceful march and then gone home. So if you’re unhappy with what happened I suggest you take it up with the boys in blue.
Comment from Michael
Time: January 8, 2009, 10:10 am
That’s so not true. The torching of the police car and the smashing of small business windows starting well before the police went “storm trooper on the crowd.” And the people I saw jumping on top of cars and smashing windows on YouTube didn’t look scared and angry. They looked like they were having a fun night out on the town. As ESO Boy said on AllHipHop.com:
“I ain’t never held my head down because of where I’m from. I’ve always had pride in being from East Oakland CA. But this shit niggas is doing is fucking shameful. I personally knew Oscar Grant, and I know for a fact that he wouldn’t want this shit to have escalated this far. People don’t care about Oscar, their using this tragedy as an excuse to act a damn fool…Oscar’s death is sadly being exploited by people that ain’t got shit to do but act like they aint got no fucking sense.”
http://www.allhiphop.com/stories/news/archive/2009/01/08/20783563.aspx
If I’m name-calling, it’s because I’m pissed that some people took a legitimate cause that nearly everyone in the Bay supported and fucked it up with their juvenile behavior.
Now maybe there were some non-violent protesters and some violent ones that broke off from the group. But regardless, Oakland looks stupid once again.
Comment from lynx
Time: January 8, 2009, 4:47 pm
Michael,
I know for a fact that things were peaceful up until the police had put a blocks distance between themselves and any potential witnesses because I saw it happen – I was one of those people who was cut off from the protest and trapped on the other side of the police line. The last thing I saw was a nonviolent crowd totally surrounded by cops in full storm trooper gear with gasmasks on and weapons drawn as the cops forced them down a dark side street away from supporters and potential witnesses. That’s suspicious to say the least. From there all I’ve got as far as evidence is a phone call from my friend who was in that crowd and said the cops charged the crowd and started beating and grabbing people and then the group exploded. Remember at that point the folks in that group had been surrounded by armed stormtroopers for over an hour, unable to disperse even if they’d wanted too, and their options were to stay passive and get their asses kicked or fight back.
It’s my belief, based on my experience over the years in Bay Area activism, that the police were intentionally provoking the crowd in an effort to get a reaction in order to discredit the protests. There’s no other explanation for their behavior. If their intention had been to arrest everyone they could have done so easily, they outnumbered the crowd by upwards of 50%. If their intention was to disperse the crowd they wouldn’t have surrounded them and prevented them from leaving.
In any case, the good news is that today the Mayor finally issued a statement and the members of the BART Board of Directors all personally apologized. Not that that will bring Oscar (or any of the other victims of police shootings in Oakland) back to life, but at least city officials have admitted it was wrong and that’s a step towards the family being able to bring charges against their sons murderer.
The thing is, this isn’t just about Oscar, unarmed people get killed by cops all the time in America, and the perpetrators are virtually never held accountable. In this case you’ve got 2 videos of the actual shooting clearly showing his innocence and an enraged local community that’s not going to let this slide so it’s possible something will happen (though by no means certain) but if this had taken place someplace out of the public eye with no witnesses or cameras the reaction would be totally different. For starters, the murder wouldn’t have gotten nearly as much coverage and without those videos there would have been no public apologies. He would have been just another faceless victim of police brutality and his family would have no hope for justice. That’s the bigger issue here. this isn’t an isolated incident. It’s part of a pattern of violence stretching back decades.
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