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NEWS & LETTERS, July-August 2010
Justice for Oscar Grant
Los Angeles--On June 10 and 14 there were demonstrations outside the Criminal Court Building here of over 200 Black, Brown, white and Asian youth demanding justice for Oscar Grant, a 22-year-old Black worker fatally shot in the back by a white Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) police officer as Grant lay face down at an Oakland train station.
The trial of BART cop Johannes Mehserle lasted from June 10 to July 2. On July 8 the jury, after only a few hours of deliberation, rendered a verdict of involuntary manslaughter. The minimum sentence being two years, Mehserle could get off with time served.
Within hours of the announcement a major intersection in downtown Oakland was jammed with hundreds of protesters. Security personnel from a number of Black youth groups reminded everyone that Oakland is their home and that Oscar Grant would not want property damaged in his name. One Black man placed his chess set in the middle of the street and invited people to play as a challenge to think carefully.
After dark there was some vandalism. Many witnesses suspect agents provocateurs since police ignored the perpetrators and arrested those they believed were anarchists.
--Basho and M'Oto
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