Can anyone blame people for getting angry over the senseless killing of Oscar Grant?! Hell no. We at Malcolm-Che stand in solidarity with the protestors (108 of whom were arrested), who should get their charges dismissed. We wish we were on the West Coast, we would have been shoulder to shoulder with them.
The officer who killed Oscar has now resigned:
http://www.mercurynews.com/localnewsheadlines/ci_11399026
But resignation is not enough. Manslaughter charges are not enough. We want 1st Degree Murder charges, and ultimately we want an end to the entire police state. Here is coverage and pictures of the protest:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/09/us/09oakland.html?hp
Protesters angry over a deadly New Year’s Day shooting of a young black man by a transit police officer erupted into violence in downtown Oakland on Wednesday night while investigators struggled to determine what prompted the officer to fire his gun into the unarmed man’s back.
After an afternoon of peaceful demonstrations and a memorial service, protests turned chaotic after dark as a small clutch of protesters set trash cans and cars afire and busted windows on police cruisers and storefronts. Police in riot gear responded with tear gas and billy clubs and at least 14 arrests were made, according to local television reports. Several major downtown streets were closed, and helicopter footage showed small groups of protesters roaming through the city’s deserted center. There were no immediate reports of injuries, but sirens continued to echo into the late evening.
Mayor Ron Dellums pleaded for calm as anger continued to build in the city’s black community over the shooting of Oscar Grant III, a 22-year-old butcher’s apprentice who was shot in the back while lying on the platform at the Fruitvale station of the Bay Area Rapid Transit system.
“We’ve got to have a real investigation that people can have confidence in,” said Mr. Dellums on Wednesday night. “And my sense of it is that part of this reaction is that people have lost confidence.”
Mr. Grant, who had been involved in a scuffle aboard a train after leaving a New Year’s Eve celebration in San Francisco, died at a local hospital several hours after being shot. The bullet, which had passed through his lower back, ricocheted into his lung. The officer, Johannes Mehserle, resigned on Wednesday, but investigators said efforts to interview him about the circumstances of the shooting had been rebuffed by his lawyers and police union leaders, according to Linton Johnson, spokesperson for the transit district
The incident was captured by at least four cellphone cameras held by passengers on a train idling next to the platform. The videos, which have been widely broadcast and streamed online, show Mr. Grant lying face down when Mr. Mehserle, 27, pulls his gun and fires a single shot. Mr. Mehserle looks stunned for a moment, and then handcuffs Mr. Grant with the assistance of another officer.
John Burris, a lawyer for Mr. Grant’s mother and his live-in girlfriend, said he had asked Tom Orloff, the Alameda County District Attorney, to consider filing criminal charges against Mr. Mehserle.
“If you can’t file charges in a case like this,” said Mr. Burris, “I don’t know what kind of case you can file in.”
Mr. Orloff said he was still investigating the case, as was the BART police department. Federal law enforcement were also reported to be looking into whether Mr. Grant’s civil rights were violated in his killing.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gO4s1dgxjYfHi3mbqoobWZZomz3gD95IQV0O0
January 9th, 2009 at 5:32 PM
[This is the statement issued by our comrades at the IAC and FIST calling not only for justice for Oscar Grant but for the freeing of everyone arrested in the righteous anti-brutality demos that have been held in Oakland since Grant's murder by a police officer.]
Joint statement from the International Action Center &
F.I.S.T. (Fight Imperialism-Stand Together)
International Action Center
http://www.iacenter.org
FIST (Fight Imperialism-Stand Together)
http://www.fistyouth.wordpress.com
Justice for Oscar Grant!
Jail Johannes Mehserle and All Killer Cops!
Amnesty Now for those arrested during the Oakland
rebellion!
Rebellion of the Oppressed is not a Crime, Police
Brutality is the Crime!
The International Action Center and Fight
Imperialism-Stand Together (FIST) strongly condemn the
fatal shooting of 22 year-old African-American father,
Oscar Grant, by BART cop Johannes Mehserle, Jan. 1 at the
Fruitvale station in Oakland, Calif. Grant was forced off
the train at 2 a.m. with others and forced to lie face
down on the ground. While he was laying face down,
Mehserle pulled his gun from its holster and shot Grant in
the back.
The incident was caught on cell phone cameras and has
since been broadcast far and wide, exposing not only BART
police but the ineptitude of the authorities in Oakland in
dealing with the fatal killing of another unarmed person
of color by the police.
It was not until days had passed that BART officials or
anyone from the city made any public statements regarding
the killing, though many witnesses came forward.
Officials refused to officially give Mehserle’s name and
claimed that an official statement was being withheld
until he could be interviewed. Then, Mehserle resigned and
the public was told to wait further.
The people of Oakland appeared to not be in a waiting mood
and instead calling for mass rallies and, at the first
one, openly rebelling, even to the point of almost
overturning a police cop squad car.
This was in response to cops in full riot gear charging
toward what had initially been a peaceful demonstration.
The response of the crowd, especially the young people is
reminiscent of what transpired in Greece a few months back
after the killing of 15 year-old Alexandros Andreas
Grigoropoulos by a cop in Exarchia, Greece. The killing
set off a rebellion that lasted for days and occurred at a
time of a general strike that gained momentum because of
the rebellion, which led to more job walkouts throughout
the country in many industries.
The mood of the oppressed and workers, especially African
Americans in Oakland, one of the poorest cities in
California, is one of being fed up. One woman in the crowd
of protesters summed it up, “We live a life of fear, and
we want them to be afraid tonight.”
From Gaza, where the Palestinian people are quartered in
the world’s largest prison and being slaughtered by
U.S.-backed Israeli bomb and tanks to Exarchia, to
Oakland, people have a right to express their indignation,
demand justice and their due as human beings.
The cop who killed Oscar Grant should not be allowed to
walk free and should be jailed, prosecuted and his fate
decided by the people of Oakland. The evidence is
irrefutable; it was a cold blooded killing.
The 150 protesters arrested and detained from righteously
rebelling at the protest after Oscar Grant was buried
should be released and given amnesty as soon as possible.
Demand that the District Attorney arrest and charge
Mehserle the murder of Oscar Grant:
Contact: Alameda County District Attorney, Tom Orloff at:
(510) 272-6222
(510) 271-5157 fax
End Oppression from Gaza to Exarchia to Oakland!
_______________________________________________
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Send an email request to
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January 11th, 2009 at 10:13 AM
Podcast by Larry Hales, organizer of the youth group Fight Imperialism Stand Together, on the killing of Oscar Grant and the righteous rebellion.
January 21st, 2009 at 11:42 PM
Hello, this is information about the police