Oscar Juliuss Grant III, (February 27, 1986 – January 1, 2009)
While many people across the nation are paying close attention to the trial of George Zimmerman, who's accused of the murder of unarmed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, filmgoers across the country are about to be introduced to another young black man, 22-year-old Oscar Grant III, shot in the back by Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer Johannes Mehserle on New Years Day in 2009.
Grant was unarmed. He was being restrained. He died in the hospital later that morning.
As word spread rapidly in the Bay Area, cell phone videos of the shooting also hit the internet. Angry residents demanded action be taken and that Mehserle be arrested.
The docudrama, "Fruitvale Station", made by 26-year-old filmmaker Ryan Coogler, profiled last week in the New York Times, has already garnered top awards from this year's Sundance Film Festival, where it was titled "Fruitvale." The movie will open in select theaters July 12 and nationwide on July 26.
While the nation watches the Zimmerman trial, and many of us are hoping that Martin's family gets justice, we can only hope that the "justice" meted out isn't what happened in the case of Oscar Grant—the trial of Mehserle, which was moved to Los Angeles, wound up with a jury that had no African Americans on it.
The verdict and sentencing:
They acquitted him on second-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter, but convicted him on charges of involuntary manslaughter.
Though involuntary manslaughter usually carries a four-year prison sentence, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Robert Perry sentenced Mehserle to two years in state prison with 292 days of credit for time already served.
Mehserle was
released from the Los Angeles county jail (he was never sent to prison) after serving only 11 months of his two-year sentence.
As many people have pointed out, Michael Vick served a longer sentence for killing dogs than Mehserle served for killing an unarmed black man.
We've seen too much of this, and unfortunately, if nothing is done about the criminal injustice system we will see it again, and again. The deaths are disproportionately of young people of color.
Though Trayvon was shot by a gung-ho neighborhood vigilante, and Oscar by a police officer, the end result is the same. Another unarmed young black man, dead.
Follow me below the fold for more.
"Fruitvale Station" isn't the first film made about Oscar Grant's murder, but it will be the first feature with a shot at wide distribution.
Roger Remera's "I Am Oscar Grant" and Adimu Madyun's "Operation Small Axe" are two cutting-edge documentaries that not only cover the slaying, but also examine the volatile community response.
(warning: strong language alert)
BART has had to pay through the nose to the tune of $5.1 million as a result of the civil suit filed against them by Grant's family, and Oakland was ordered to pay last month for the police brutality against demonstrators protesting the verdict—no amount of money can raise the dead.
We can continue to assist the families, and one effort to address their needs is being met by The Oscar Grant Foundation.
The Oscar Grant Foundation was founded specifically to develop a Family First Responders Crisis Team. To bridge the gap between the extended family’s natural emotional response and that of objective caring and knowledgeable individuals who can make appropriate services and resources available to the families in need. To provide comfort, needs assessment, emergency counseling and resource referral information to assist the family through the initial aftermath of a traumatic event caused by violence and treatment for the emotional injuries sustained at the hands of law enforcement officers.
Sadly, no foundations will solve the problems, nor will they stop future deaths.
We are the only people who can do that. We have to stop the system of inequity that grows more unequal each day, fed by the war on drugs, prisons for profit and a jury system that still can't (and won't) find a panel of peers. We have to have stronger oversight, and community review of police. I haven't forgotten the Rodney King verdict.
There are many parallels between the death of Oscar Grant and Trayvon Martin, other than the fact that they were young black men. The fumbling and incompetence of the initial investigations, and the move to demonize both victims in the public eye are two examples. And yes, there are differences. The demonstrations on behalf of Trayvon did not result in police violence.
For me what becomes essential is simply a question of what value does the greater society place on the lives of young men of color (specifically) and of people of color in general in this society?
The fact that both of these cases gained wider publication and media coverage is solely the result of fierce and relentless community organizing efforts. For the most part, these cases take place in obscurity, and the dead are mourned and immortalized only in the hearts of family and friends.
In the end, the question will be one that we should pose to ourselves about the nature of racism and the criminal injustice system, and what commitment we make to instituting change. I fear that as long as victims are black, brown, red, yellow, LBGT (especially transgender), very little will be different. This change will only take place if there is the will to change laws, and hold accountable those who administer and enforce them.
Our communities of color do not have the power to go it alone.
R.I.P. Oscar, Trayvon...and all the rest.
Without justice, there will be no peace for us.
