On New Year’s Day, an unarmed man was shot in Oakland (near San Francisco) at a BART station. He was an Afro-American male, merely 22 years old. He was shot by a white policeman, execution style, on the ground with his face-down in the back.
Since his death, there has been numerous demonstrations and protests around downtown Oakland, and weeks of investigation, which led to the arrest and indictment of the officer who had shot and killed Oscar Grant. Johannes Mehserle pled not guilty to the murder and is currently in jail with $3 million bail.
So much of the news and media coverage in the past weeks have been over the protests, Johannes Mehserle’s court appearance, and of course, the “video” of his murder captured on a passenger’s cell phones camera, but so little is known of the victim, which brings me to ask, “Who was Oscar Grant?”
He was a father to a 4 year old girl. He was a brother, 6 years younger than his sister. He was an avid fisherman and a church goer, and he was loved, as there were 800 friends, relatives and community members who’d turned out for his memorial service … and aside from that, not much is known about Oscar Grant.
However, I think about his little girl growing up without a father, not knowing why he had died, and his family and friends getting the news that their beloved son, brother, nephew, and friend has been murdered … by a cop. And it is unimaginable to me how it would feel to loose someone I love in such a horrific and unceremonious way.
No comments:
Post a Comment