On New Year's Eve, Oscar Grant was executed by a transit police officer in Oakland, California. He was shot in the back while face-down on a subway platform, unarmed and posing no threat.
Twelve days later--despite several videos showing what happened--the officer who killed Grant hasn't been arrested, charged, or even questioned. He quit the force and has refused to speak. The District Attorney has done nothing.
It's time to demand that California Attorney General Jerry Brown take over the case and arrest Grant's killer, and to ask that the US Department of Justice launch an independent investigation into the conduct of the local authorities.
Oscar Grant is the third man murdered by BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) police in the past 17 years. All three victims were Black and none posed a serious threat. In each case, BART and county authorities have failed to hold the officers accountable.
In the previous cases, BART's internal investigations concluded that the officers felt threatened by the victims and were justified in pulling the trigger. It's unbelievable given the circumstances of the killings:
- In 1992, 19-year-old Jerrold Hall was shot in the back by a BART officer as he tried to leave the parking lot of a station. The officer was responding to reports of an armed robbery and said he suspected that Hall and a friend were involved. The officer tried to detain the two, Hall ran and then the officer shot him in the back and killed him. Hall was unarmed, but the officer said he thought Hall was on his way to get a gun and return for a showdown.
- In 2001, a mentally ill man named Bruce Seward was the next victim of the rogue force. Seward, 42, was naked and had been sleeping on a bench outside the BART station when an officer approached him. Seward did grab the officer's nightstick at one point, but there were several options for subduing him. Instead, the officer shot and killed him.
In addition to BART's internal investigation, Alameda County's District Attorney is also investigating Oscar Grant's murder--but the office's record on investigating police killings is horrible too. In both cases just described, the District Attorney bought BART's argument that the officers felt threatened. As a result, the cops were cleared of any wrongdoing.
In the case of Grant's murder, the DA has already let 12 days pass while doing essentially nothing--the officer who killed Grant is able to travel and leave the state, and he's free to talk with other officers and attempt to construct a story to justify his killing of Oscar Grant.
The problem with Alameda County's DA goes beyond BART police murders. In the past two years alone, there have been 11 fatal police shootings in Oakland (not including that of Oscar Grant). When asked, the officials at the District Attorney's office could not remember a single case in the last 20 years where an on-duty cop had been charged in a fatal shooting in Alameda County. It gives the clear appearance that the District Attorney's office just doesn't have the will to prosecute police crimes.
California's Attorney General needs to step in now and arrest Oscar Grant's murderer. And the US Department of Justice should investigate the failure of the authorities in Alameda County to act. It's the first step towards justice. After that, we will push for systemic changes to create public accountability for BART and other police departments. Creating those structural changes will be a much longer fight, but Oscar Grant's tragic death is a wake-up call that should give us a real chance to help prevent this from happening again.
You can sign ColorOfChange.org's petition to CA Attorney General Jerry Brown and the US Department of Justice here