Justice for Oscar Grant

[Joanne98]

From Rodney King to Sean Bell, recent American history has seen far too many examples of police brutality directed against people (usually men) of color. Rarely though, has there been a more chilling, outrageous, seemingly unnecessary instance of abuse than that of Oscar Grant's killing at the Fruitvale BART station in Oakland, California on New Year's Day.

This video is kind of long and the quality is pretty shoddy but by the end you see an unarmed man lying on the ground being shot at point blank range for absolutely no apparent reason.

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/actnow/397235?rel=hp_picks

[mulsh]

1. no, there will be no justice here, just a conviction of some sort.

I live in Oakland and use the Fruitvale BART station. I've been following this incident pretty closely and I'm still not sure exactly what Oscar Grant did aside from being part of rowdy crowd on New Years. I do know that he is dead and that one BART cop shot him in the back while he was face down.

Since their inception BART cops have had a pretty dismal reputation; glorified renta cops, woefully poorly trained gate keepers. I can't remember any BART cop ever shooting anyone but it's probably happened. Shooting someone who is face down on the pavement pretty much subdued is murder. maybe not first degree but certainly second degree murder. At the very least the cop should get the longest conviction one can for manslaughter if they can't convict him of murder.

none of this will ever bring Oscar Grant back. I don't thing it's possible for Mr. Grant to get justice, he's not around anymore.

[FiveGoodMen]

2. Excellent point!

Those only justice would be preventing these kinds of things from happening.

Still, I hope the law will be upheld in this case. I'm not betting on it.