Oscar Juliuss Grant III

[TBF]

Oscar Juliuss Grant III, (February 27, 1986 – January 1, 2009)

Young unarmed black man gunned down in the subway by white cop. Verdict today - 2 years (with time served he's out in 7 mos.).


Background stories:

The Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) Police shooting of Oscar Grant refers to the fatal shooting of unarmed civilian Oscar Grant by BART Officer Johannes Mehserle in Oakland, California, United States, in the early morning hours of New Year's Day 2009: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BART_Police_shooting_of_Oscar_Grant

Grant's family: http://oaklandlocal.com/blogs/2010/11/right-storm-intimate-look-oscar-grant%E2%80%99s-family-reflection

Today's verdict: http://www.insidebayarea.com/oakland-bart-shooting/ci_16537558

[leftstreet]

1. K&R

Thanks for doing this

I hadn't heard anything about it until tonight

[TBF]

2. I didn't know either. So sad for his family -

can't imagine how his mom is feeling tonight.

[leftstreet]

6. 'involuntary manslaughter' because he couldn't tell his gun from his taser

riiiiiiight

Gee, if he'd tasered him and he'd died, would he use the same defense?

"Thought I'd reached for my gun, but accidentally grabbed my taze!"


That poor family
:cry:

[TBF]

12. I think they'd be able to tell the difference if they were hangin' in Orange County -

he did it because he thought he could get away with it. And he pretty much did.

[Posteritatis]

22. See, I'm open to that possibility, but if so it's worth a hell of a lot more than a few months. (nt)

[MedicalAdmin]

52. I don't buy it. I was an officer years ago.

I can still tell by memory exactly where my gun, cuffs, zips , glove bag, radio, mace, flashlight, etc was on my belt. It's part of an officers training.

Tasers look and feel differnt than a gun. They are different material, size, feel, configuration, safety, trigger and pull. There is NO way he shouldn't have known.

2 years is a joke. I hope they put him in general population.

[Terra Alta]

dupe

[Terra Alta]

3. He was shot while he was pinned down??

WTF... how was he any kind of a threat? :shrug: That's murder if you ask me. Only two years.. unbelievable.

[slackmaster]

5. The judge and jury considered much more information than you have

You should read about it. It's a terrible tragedy.

[Nostradammit]

29. Yeah, what you people don't realize is that that Grant kid

got out of his handcuffs, knocked eight policemen unconscious, raped four white women
and robbed a piggly-wiggly before getting tackled again. That part was edited
out of the video you might have seen.



:sarcasm:

[Starry Messenger]

16. He was pinned down and restrained in zip ties.

http://sfist.com/2009/01/02/what_happend_at_the_fruitvale_bart.php

What Happened at the Fruitvale BART Shooting?

Early New Year's day, Oscar Grant, 22, was plugged once by a bullet from a BART officer's gun, and died. His death, it seems, stemmed from a fight hew as involved in inside a BART train. In the middle of a fight between two groups of men heading from San Francisco to the East Bay, the melee spilled off the train and onto the platform.

So, the cops were called. The boys were rounded up, placed in handcuff, and they were all set the spend the first day of 2009 in the clink. But then, for reasons that are still unknown, Oscar Grant was shot and killed.

Authorities say that they are "investigating whether the gun was fired on purpose or accidentally," even though the "officer had drawn his weapon during the incident." And it's unclear if Grant was handcuffed or not when he got shot. While some eyewitnesses claim that "Grant was on the platform and handcuffed when he was shot," BART spokesperson Jim Allison said that " preliminary investigation indicates that Mr. Grant was not restrained when the officer's firearm was discharged."

Grant had zip-tie cuffs around his ankles and wrists, says one witness. And no weapons were found at the scene.

[slackmaster]

26. "boys"?!?!

:argh:

[TBF]

49. I know, right?

:mad:

[hfojvt]

93. What else would you call a 22 year old?

That's practically a teenager.

[Starry Messenger]

4. .

I lived 5 blocks away from Fruitvale BART at the time and heard the shot that night. It's sickening that a man's life is so cheap. We won't forget you Oscar Grant.

[TBF]

14. Did you do the artwork Starry - it's beautiful. nt

[Starry Messenger]

15. No, I found it online.

There have been many art tributes to Oscar in the city and on websites. All of them are beautiful.

[Ken Burch]

17. No we won't.

And it's sickening that his killer's lawyer won't even accept him serving the pathetic seven months.

[Starry Messenger]

18. The whole handling of the cop has been appalling since day 1.

I can't even type his name. They let him run off to Nevada to "think" or some shit before bringing him back. The DA had to practically be coerced into taking this seriously. It's been a creeping and horrible stain on the city. I can't even imagine the grief of Grant's family.

[XemaSab]

7. He was a lowlife thug who left his baby to go drinking and got into a brawl on the train

Grant served two state prison terms for various felonies including a conviction for drug dealing. In 2007, San Leandro police stunned him with a Taser to subdue him after a traffic stop, in which he threw the pistol into the air and ran. He was sentenced to 16 months in state prison.



He didn't deserve to be shot, but Oakland is crawling with lowlifes, and that's why the cop was so quick to pull the trigger.

[blondeatlast]

9. Wow. I guess he was irredeemable and so the BART guy did us all a favor.

Did you even bother to read what happened? :mad:

[TBF]

10. I don't even know where to start with this post of yours -

Maybe we should begin with the definition of "lowlife" - and I'll bet mine differs from yours. I'd be looking at someone in authority shooting an unarmed guy on the subway as "lowlife", not the other way around.

[leftstreet]

11. Sounds like you're describing that actor Charlie Sheen

drinking, brawling, abandoning loved ones

Shoot em all!

[blondeatlast]

13. "Oakland is crawling with lowlifes." Redding appears to have a few, too--

everyplace does.

[readmoreoften]

19. So people are supposed to be tethered to their kids or they deserve to be shot in the back point

blank? If so, then cops should go to nightclubs and shoot the majority of white men and women in the back too. I don't care what his past was. It is IRRELEVANT to waiting on a subway station and being shot in the back by a cop. He could've just as easily been a fucking Rhodes scholar.

Fucking disgusting.

[XemaSab]

21. He wasn't waiting on the platform

He had been in a drunken brawl on the train.

[TBF]

73. That is pure speculation on your part -

This is how his family described the incident:

"I asked Sophina if she was on the train with Oscar that night or was she waiting downstairs to pick him up. “I was on the train,” she said.

Mrs. Johnson knew the story well. “Oscar sent her downstairs and stay there and wait for him.” “He sent her away from the problem,” Mrs. Johnson added.
“What was going on upstairs?”

Sophina gave me a look. “They were grabbing people …”

“What started it? Did they ever know?”

Mrs. Johnson said, “It was suppose to be a fight on the BART train.”

According to court documents, the train coming into Fruitvale station was packed when a fight or an argument broke out. A white man involved in the dispute or his wife pulled the emergency cord that contacted the operator, who called the police.

As the train came into the station, BART policeman Tony Pirone grabbed four men from the train and forced them to sit against a wall. He asked his partner Marysol Domenic to guard them. Other policemen, Officer Johannes Mehserle and his partner, joined them. Pirone ordered Mehserle to arrest Oscar and his friend. When Mehserle attempted to arrest Oscar Grant, he ended up killing him."

http://oaklandlocal.com/blogs/2010/11/right-storm-intimate-look-oscar-grant%E2%80%99s-family-reflection

[lunasun]

20. He was a lowlife thug who left his baby to go drinking

was he breastfeeding at the time??? left the baby all alone?? You can be on a train and wind up in many bad situations you had no intentions of being in, esp on NYE
Bizarre judgement process you have but I see you use one the favorite words of those who do that a lot 'thug'...

[LooseWilly]

24. I drove a taxi in Oakland for 10 years and I know from lowlife thugs... Grant scores a 2 on my scale

2 out of 10. Maybe a 3.

Please, tell us your qualifications on judging "lowlife thugs"...

While you're at it, how about posting some links to support your assertions of the alleged criminal record. I can't help but think you're swallowing some BS if you're trying to tell us that Grant "served two state prison terms for various felonies including a conviction for drug dealing," by the age of 22. State prison terms don't tend to be so short... And, can you provide a link to the San Leandro police arrest report? Maybe a case number? A story about the case?...

The fact that there are "lowlifes" in Oakland (though I get the feeling that you haven't got the faintest idea of what a "real lowlife" is, based on the words you use in your post) doesn't justify, in the slightest, shooting Grant on the off-chance that he might've been one of "them". That is the same line of thinking that justifies cabbies in many cities, in their own minds, in refusing to pick up black people. It's racist judgementalist paranoia that hopes to use fear to justify itself—whether it's being used by cabbies who refuse to pick up black people, or by cops trying to justify second degree murder (to give Mehserle every benefit of the doubt that it was incompetence, rather than pre-meditation, that led him to shoot a pinned young man in the back).

And, just for your information, Oakland isn't crawling with lowlifes... the lowlifes in Oakland strut. And they don't submit to be zip-tied by BART cops... they gun them down at traffic stops, like http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/22/us/22oakland.html">Lovelle Mixon did in 2009.

Oscar Grant looks to me, after 10 years working the streets of Oakland, more like a kid who got into some trouble when he was young, still had a spot of a wild streak, but was probably either working or going to a community college and working part-time. You can see it in the eyes, once you've had some practice and nearly come to violence enough times when wrong. If you've been in the suburbs too long though, I guess it's easy to make the mistake of thinking that a single drug dealing conviction makes someone a thug... but suburbanite judgements really get tiresome sometimes.

I probably wouldn't've bothered to ask him for money up-front if he wanted a cab-ride across town.


**Edit to add** - One last detail: How did Mehserle know Grant had a criminal record when he shot him, by the way? If he didn't know... then how is it relevant? Is involvement in an altercation on New Years now grounds for the police to assume a criminal record and justification for accidental incompetence murders? Maybe we should all stay locked up at home on New years from now on, lest we make the mistake of responding in the event of someone talking smack to us... and wind up shot in the back?

[XemaSab]

25. I grew up in Oakland

and the way I see it, criminals are everything that's wrong with that city.

If gangbangers didn't go around shooting people at random, maybe the cops wouldn't be so trigger happy either.

[LooseWilly]

28. Where in Oakland did you grow up? Montclair? Gangbangers shooting people at random?...

I never saw anything random about the gangbanger shootings. The targets were generally rival dealers... fights over turf... and some shootings over idiotic young egos... not random, just dumb. Cops are rarely the targets... otherwise Mixon wouldn't've been such big news.

As for criminals being everything that's wrong with the city... I disagree. Unemployment and outsourcing of the industrial base is what's really wrong with the city. During the dot.com boom the violence subsided... possibly partially because the dealers had plenty of business and so they didn't have to fight with each other for business. I'm sure you know what I mean... being from Oakland and all.

Your assertion that there are gangbangers who shoot people justifies cops shooting people is kind of jaw dropping (and contributes to a suspicion you grew up in Montclair). Not everyone in the ghettoes of East and West Oakland is a thug or a gangbanger. Not even half of the people living in East and West Oakland ghettoes are thugs, gangbangers, ho's, pimps, or hustlers... and your callous dismissal of a responsibility for the police to be aware of this puts the lives of hardworking folks in East and West Oakland, in the Eastlawn projects, the Acorn projects, and all the various and assorted HUD buildings... as well as families who've bought houses on 77th Ave, or Union St., or what have you... you're putting all their lives in jeopardy by making police shootings of any of them justified because you are, and by extension they should be, afraid of the "boogey-man" gangbangers that exist in the abstract... just on the off chance that anyone encountered in half of the city might be thusly suspicious/dangerous.

Are you sure you're ok with painting a target on half the population of the city where you grew up?

[XemaSab]

35. Montclair? More like Park Boulevard near Oakland High

And you really think half the people in Oakland are thugs, gangbangers, ho's, pimps, and hustlers? Damn, looks to me like you're the one painting the target. I would have said more like 2% tops, but it's a 2% that make things shitty for the other 98%.

I don't think the cops are right to go around shooting people, but I do think the cops are totally justified in being paranoid about even seemingly minor incidents.

Furthermore,

Perry read from a police report accusing Grant of running from San Leandro officers during a traffic stop in October 2006. He was shot with a Taser stun gun and resisted arrest as officers tried to handcuff him, the report says.

Rains has argued that Mehserle intended to stun Grant with his Taser on the Fruitvale Station platform as he arrested him for allegedly resisting police, but that Mehserle pulled his pistol by mistake.

Perry said the earlier incident would help shed light on Grant for jurors. "I must allow some evidence of this prior incident," Perry said. "The fact he resisted before, and the way he did it before," is important.

Authorities say Grant was carrying a gun in that incident that he tried to get rid of during the foot pursuit. A .380 pistol was found about 20 feet from the site of the arrest, and Grant was later sentenced to 16 months in state prison for a gun possession charge.



Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/05/08/BAKC1DBCK5.DTL#ixzz14TnV36Lh

Mehserle was TOTALLY RIGHT to be paranoid that Grant had a gun.

[Starry Messenger]

37. Grant was zip-tied when Mehserle suddenly decided to play psychic.

Even if he'd had a weapon, what was he supposed to shoot it with, his asscheeks? Honestly, I've seen less inflammatory comments in SFgate.

[LooseWilly]

42. Park Blvd.? Like... a mile down the road from Montclair? Or 2 miles?

I notice you conveniently fail to mention which side of the MacArthur freeway, off Park Blvd. Were you on the upper side where the lawyers buy homes while still paying off their law school student loans?... or the down flatlands side where the liquor stores are held up at gunpoint from time to time?

I lived on the flatlands side for a few years. Had my apartment broken into, and had the wheel stolen off my car... and caught a crackhead rummaging around in my brother's truck in a rainstorm... and I still don't think any of that justifies cops feeling so "threatened" that they should be allowed to get away with shooting an unarmed and zip-tied man on a BART platform (or anywhere else).

Ohh yeah, and I didn't say "half the people in Oakland are thugs, gangbangers, ho's, pimps, and hustlers" ; I said "Not even half of the people living in East and West Oakland ghettoes are thugs, gangbangers, ho's, pimps, or hustlers..." — which was meant to be a hyperbolic disputation of the implicit assertion you had made... the use of "even" should have, in that context, implied a maximum, nearly absurd, upper limit to the possible concentration... the fact that you decided to try to convert that ironic turn of phrase into a didactic statement before trying to jam it into my mouth so as to use it as a strawman argument is kind of amusing... but given the context of the rest of my post I think a discerning reader will find the attempt to be laughable. The fact that you tried to pretend that there wasn't any humor in that turn of phrase only reduces my estimation of your integrity in this discussion.

If you would like, I will refrain from using any potentially entertaining turns of phrase in the rest of this discussion... but a dry argumentation of that sort will tend to read in a dessicated tone.

In that tone, please elucidate for us all the fine line between "I don't think the cops are right to go around shooting people" and "I do think the cops are totally justified in being paranoid about even seemingly minor incidents"... are you saying that the cops shouldn't express their paranoia by shooting people?... Or are you saying that the paranoia trumps the lack of "rightness" of shooting people? Are "minor incidents" the tripping point? Do "minor incidents" justify paranoid shootings, while major incidents don't?

And thank you for that link. Obviously :sarcasm: the fact that Grant had previously been tasered for fleeing from a traffic stop... justified tasering Grant while he was pinned and zip-tied on the BART platform... with a gun... fatally... because Grant had been linked to a gun... in his flight previously... so Mehserle (who could apparently psychically read rap sheets) knew that he should expect that, since every arrest is like the previous one, Grant would soon be fleeing (despite the knee on his back and the zip-tie) in order to dispose of a gun (which he didn't have)... and so a new tasering was in order... and he shouldn't be blamed if, in the confusion of his psychic visions, he drew the wrong weapon and murdered a man who was not repeating the pattern of a previous incident...

[blueamy66]

91. Give it up

you're done

[JonLP24]

95. Said what I wanted to say

but a thousand times better as usual.

[Catherina]

33. It's Redding that's crawling with lowlives these days, not Oakland n/t

[Gormy Cuss]

60. And none of that is an excuse for trigger happy/taser happy cops.

None of it.

[slutticus]

68. Yep

This whole situation is so fucked up.

And now a bunch of animals (i'm sorry, "protesters") have had two opportunities to tear up the city

[TBF]

71. And you are referring to protestors as "animals" for exactly what reason?

Is that a racial comment? Or do you simply enjoy watching cops shoot unarmed citizens and feel that sort of action should be acceptable in our society?

[Number23]

77. And this will be my second "WOW" in this thread. I'm out before I say something half as outrageous

as some of the posts in this thread.

[Number23]

76. WOW. That's the only thing I can say to your post without being banned

Simply, WOW.

[Blue_Tires]

100. that mindset only encourages more deadly "accidents" to black men in police custody

and less punishment for the cops who commit them....

[blondeatlast]

8. He had gentle in his eyes and such a sweet smile.

He is not forgotten.

[proteus_lives]

27. Yep, a gentle drug dealer.

You don't need to shine a turd to be upset with the way he died.

[LooseWilly]

30. I don't recall hearing that he had drugs on him...

calling him a drug dealer is therefore tantamount to risking libel.

Shine your own turd buddy...

(And, just to set the record clear... I dispute the idea that drug dealers are, a priori, bad people. 7 times out of 10 I'd prefer to interact with a drug dealer, in business unrelated to drugs, than a cop... in my experience cops are much more likely to be pricks, on a basic human level, than drug dealers.)

[proteus_lives]

32. Google his record.

What libel?

Really? Drug dealers are nice, upstanding folks? Well, I guess you've never had to keep someone from choking on their vomit while they were ODing. Kinda shakes your opinion of those nice folks who supply the neighborhood with meth and coke.

[LooseWilly]

38. His record is irrelevant. Were drugs found on his body after he was murdered?

If not, there is no grounds for calling him a drug dealer.

Calling him a drug dealer, when he was not dealing drugs, is libel. It is a mischaracterization of him which damages his reputation. Google the term... and think about it.

If past drug use/dealing makes one a drug dealer for life then our last three presidents probably are drug dealers too. By that measurement I also am a drug dealer.

Uhh... yeah, many drug dealers are nice (when they don't have to be assholes for business reasons), upstanding (within the context of the world of the work that they do) folks. I drove a taxi for 10 years and drug dealers could always be relied upon to pay their bills. Keeping someone from choking on their vomit while ODing is so wonderfully http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093407/">Less than Zero... and no I haven't had to do that, though I would... I've just had to put out the couch that some junky friends set on fire smoking heroin in my living room—after waking the couple up of course (they were celebrating, he'd just gotten out of his halfway house time).

I didn't shoot either one of them.

Coke, huh?... doesn't tend to be a problem in Oakland... I think you must be thinking of the suburban dealers... and I will readily admit to a lack of knowledge of what kind of verminous scum you and your friends might buy your drugs from in the suburbs... on that score, I defer to your expertise.

[proteus_lives]

39. Oh, bullshit.

"I drove a taxi for 10 years and drug dealers could always be relied upon to pay their bills"

Nice to know how you take measure of a person.

"when they don't have to be assholes for business reasons), upstanding (within the context of the world of the work that they do)"

Such gymnastics. Did you stretch first?

"I've just had to put out the couch that some junky friends set on fire smoking heroin in my living room—after waking the couple up of course (they were celebrating, he'd just gotten out of his halfway house time)."

What a nice bunch.


Oh and your last paragraph? Weak dude, try harder.

[Name removed]

44. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Hannah Bell]

47. nice elision of the point: his prior record is irrelevant to the issue at hand,

which was, did the officer have reason to shoot him, & to shoot to kill?

[proteus_lives]

48. Nice attempt to ignore my original post.

Never said there was.

But making him something he wasn't doesn't help the situation.

[TBF]

50. Your original post was crap -

He was a very young (22 yr old) man - who did have some previous altercations and a criminal record, including drugs.

Wiki states "Grant had worked as a butcher at Farmer Joe's Marketplace in Oakland's Dimond District after jobs at several Kentucky Fried Chicken outlets". He had a girl friend and the family stated he was doing better since his release from prison.

Do we give folks a chance after they are released from prison, or are they permanently scorned? That white cop also would not have had these background stories that we have. He simply acted (and there's some good info in the background articles about his violent past as well). Of course we are only tearing apart the victim here, I get that loud and clear.

[Starry Messenger]

57. BART cops are undertrained lunatics.

Oakland is notorious for its cops getting young black kids "into the system" at a very early age. That's why so many young men have records. The same shit that would get a rich white kid on the hills a slap on the wrist gets young black flatland guys a trip to the county on felonies. There are plenty of young white coke dealers that will never see the inside of a courtroom if they get caught.


It wouldn't even matter about his record. It was a public disturbance arrest and Oscar and his friends were all up on the BART platform zip-tied. The cops just had walkie-talkies, no one's record was pulled at the scene. They are transit security guards with a badge. They shouldn't even have guns. Talk about "waving guns around!" One of the other "cops" Pirone was heard at the scene inflaming the situation and calling the young men n*****s.

[proteus_lives]

67. And once again, you miss the point.

You don't need to turn him into something he wasn't to be angry about the way he died or at the sentence of the cop.

Yes, people get a chance after prison but they also don't get canonized if something bad happens to them.

I'm not tearing him apart, stop building him up.

[TBF]

70. The point is that an unarmed man was constrained and executed by the BART cop -

you had no reason to bring up any past history on him, and only did it to discredit him. That was all you, and now you're trying to backpedal while continuing to blame the victim. No dice on this one - you are wrong.

[proteus_lives]

75. Oh, come on.

People were calling him a "gentle soul" and showing paintings of him. Unnecessary and unhelpful.

I'm not backpedaling, I'm standing by my position. You don't need to build him up to support what you're saying. I don't see what's so hard to understand about that.

[TBF]

78. "Unnecessary and unhelpful" to show that an unarmed person - yes a PERSON -

was gunned down by a cop with an attitude. I personally posted his photo - is that over the top? No, it's much easier for you to just paint him as a drug dealer who apparently got what he deserved - for being black and living in America.

That disgusts me.

[proteus_lives]

79. Point that out.

"No, it's much easier for you to just paint him as a drug dealer who apparently got what he deserved"

Please point out where I said he got what he deserved. I'll wait.

[TBF]

80. I don't need to - it was implied by the fact that you brought it up at all.

It was completely irrelevant to being an unarmed person that the BART police decided to tie down and execute.

Completely unrelated, yet you needed to bring it into the conversation. Why would that be?

[proteus_lives]

81. And you keep ignoring the point I'm making.

Unsurprising.

Back-pedal away.

[TBF]

82. I haven't ignored your so-called point - which is attacking the victim.

Obviously you are happy with the cop and feel the victim was at fault. We see a lot of blaming the victim in this society, which I suppose arises in a system where people have no control so they just lash out at the most vulnerable.

[proteus_lives]

83. Once again, point out where I said that.

"Obviously you are happy with the cop and feel the victim was at fault."

And you can't. You keep ignoring my point and attacking me. It's not working.

You're still refusing admit that canonizing this man doesn't do anything constructive.

[TBF]

84. Nobody is cannonizing anyone - we are talking about an unfair verdict. YMMV. nt

[proteus_lives]

87. I guess I was thrown off by the painting of him.

"Nobody is cannonizing anyone"

:eyes:

[LooseWilly]

89. You most certainly did imply it.

"Really? Drug dealers are nice, upstanding folks? Well, I guess you've never had to keep someone from choking on their vomit while they were ODing. Kinda shakes your opinion of those nice folks who supply the neighborhood with meth and coke." (quote from upthread)

You thusly implied that 'people like Grant' ('those judged to be dealers by you') are responsible when someone is "choking on their vomit while they were ODing"... and the implicit understanding in this country is that one is responsible and should be punished for causing "choking on their vomit while they were ODing" amidst one's own customers.

Further... "choking on their vomit while they're ODing" implies that the "victims" of these "drugdealers" are dying... justifying, implicitly, that the drugdealers themselves should also die...

You didn't do it explicitly... you never said "drug dealers should die"... but you implied it. You implied steps a, b, and c... You made your hopes clear, or failed to make your hopes clear if you hoped for anything other than death for ... "Really? Drug dealers are nice, upstanding folks? Well, I guess you've never had to keep someone from choking on their vomit while they were ODing. Kinda shakes your opinion of those nice folks who supply the neighborhood with meth and coke." ... it's a crude job, but there're all the elements of tying death of users to justified killing of distributors... intro-level pr...

[proteus_lives]

90. "intro-level pr"

Well, you must of failed that class.

No, I don't think drug dealers are nice people. I don't have your level of respect for them (Or the respect you seem to give to whoever gives you money.)

I'm amused that my original point is still being ignored.

You can leap-frog to all the false-connections you like but you still need to take that class again.

[TBF]

97. Nobody ignored your original point - we've told you repeatedly

that you had no point. I posted my photograph, and perhaps the other poster added the drawing, to humanize the victim, who was completely trashed by you as a "drug dealer".

As if his low level actions & resulting prison sentence (which he served) made him a suitable target for a trigger-happy racist cop. No, we don't ignore your point - we dismiss it as ludicrous.

[proteus_lives]

98. Still ignoring it.

"As if his low level actions & resulting prison sentence (which he served) made him a suitable target for a trigger-happy racist cop. No, we don't ignore your point - we dismiss it as ludicrous."

Where did I say that?

He was being humanized by court proceedings, his family and friends testimony and sorry the behavior toward him went over. And that's unhelpful.

Your denial is pretty amazing.

[TBF]

99. I didn't say you said that -

and where did I claim that you did?

Two can play your ridiculous game, but I've had enough. If you want to make excuses for murder, you go right ahead. I think your responses show your character quite clearly.

[proteus_lives]

101. And you're still doing it!

"If you want to make excuses for murder"

Is someone disagreeing that unbearable? Are you that insecure?

I'm making a point and you're ignoring it in favor of shrill accusations. Revealing, indeed.

[apocalypsehow]

41. "you and your friends might buy your drugs from in the suburbs"- And you have proof of this, right?

:shrug:

Of course you don't: it's just another smarmy personal attack on a poster whose opinion you dislike.

"Libel," indeed. :eyes:

[LooseWilly]

45. Dude, you're gonna edit my quote to twist the context... when it's visible in the thread?

Really?

"you and your friends might buy your drugs from in the suburbs" != "Coke, huh?... doesn't tend to be a problem in Oakland... I think you must be thinking of the suburban dealers... and I will readily admit to a lack of knowledge of what kind of verminous scum you and your friends might buy your drugs from in the suburbs... on that score, I defer to your expertise."

If you'll read the comment I made you'll notice that I theorize that the poster must be thinking of suburban dealers (extrapolating that they are likely his own... since I made no mention of suburban dealers, and few Oakland dealers deal coke)...

Of course I have no proof... I never said it was any sort of fact... I said "I think you must be thinking of..." again, a statement of my opinion of how to reconcile the unsubstantiated assertion of coke by the poster to whom I was responding, in a milieu in which coke is uncommon... as opposed to other milieus (suburban) in which it is common... and the deduction I made (and stand by) was that the poster was coming from a milieu in which coke was a common drug, and I was positing the possibility that, in the poster's experience, coke made sense as a drug dealt by dealers because of previous experience in the trade of coke.

Your presumption of an attack is rather amusing, actually. If you read upthread, you'll find that I am not opposed to drug dealing, or drug purchasing... and so it would be silly of me to use such an accusation as a "personal attack". I am a fan of the adjective "smarmy" though... and thanks for making me feel a little pimp-like, if only for a moment before I deduced that you don't know what the hell you're talking about.

And yes, that would be "libel" as well, if I hadn't just outlined a case for why my assertion that you don't know what the hell you're talking about is true... and, as I'm sure you're aware truth is the single best defense against a case of libel.

Have a nice day... and enjoy yourself if you continue to think that there was anything personal in my statements...

[apocalypsehow]

46. Baloney: I quoted you *precisely*. Now you're just playing semantics games.

Here is what you typed:

"and I will readily admit to a lack of knowledge of what kind of verminous scum you and your friends might buy your drugs from in the suburbs... on that score, I defer to your expertise" (emphases added).

That is not "theorizing": that is a flat-out assertion.

You know well what you were doing: personally attacking the poster by implying they bought drugs. It is right there in plain English, typed by your very own hand. :eyes:

Peddle it elsewhere.

[LooseWilly]

88. Actually, you didn't quote me precisely. I quoted me precisely... your quote was unintelligible.

The quote you just typed is what I re-typed... it is not what you quoted initially. On the other hand... at least this time you did quote me accurately.

I have no objections, either, to your insertions of bold for emphasis.

It is not, however, "flat-out assertion". The reference to "verminous scum" is a hyperbolic reflection of the words that the poster used to describe "thugs" in Oakland... based upon the phrase "lowlifes crawling around Oakland". The inference of "you and your friends might buy your drugs from in the suburbs" is a distillation drawn from the fact that the poster made reference to cocaine sales, as well as marijuana sales, despite the fact that there was no evidence of cocaine sales... and the fact that cocaine is not a popular drug in Oakland. Hence... I drew the conclusion and floated it in the general direction of the poster, that it was the poster's own drug purchasing experiences that led him or her to assume that there must've been cocaine involved in whatever alleged or presumed drug sales were or might've been occurring.

It was a theory that I floated in order to see how the poster would respond. There was never any denial of the proposed theory by the poster, in any response, you might notice...

And as to your assertion that I was "personally attacking the poster by implying they bought drugs"... wow, a puritan such as yourself would do well to avoid a city like Oakland... the implication that someone might've bought drugs is only a personal attack when one is accusing said drug purchaser of being too miserly to share said drugs, in Oakland.

Peddle it elsewhere? I'm not buying or peddling at the moment. I'm not even holding... on the off-chance that you know what I'm talking about.

For future reference... I'm not attacking people when I call them Satanists, Communists, Anarchists, drug dealers, drug users, junkies, homeless, homosexuals, socialists, union members, atheists, agnostics, Hindus, riverdancers, or even breeders. If you carry some baggage relative to any of the above... that's your Star of David to bear...

On the other hand, if I call someone a "pig", I'm pretty much using an epithet aimed at a law enforcement official.

Keep your eyes peeled... and your alert buttons handy....

[Catherina]

36. The cops confiscated all the cameras afterwards to hide their dirty deed.

They missed one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXW59Nx1loU and we got to see that their version of events was a lie.

There's nothing like the law to protect itself and abuse people. All around the Bay Area people stood in solidarity with Oscar Grant and organized protests. We have to come to DU to hear Fresno-type bullshit about him.

Jan. 5 - Dozens of witnesses have been flooding investigators with testimony into the fatal police shooting of 22 year old Oscar Julius Grant II from Hayward, CA.

The incident occurred when armed police officers responded to a report around 2 a.m. that two groups of young men were fighting on a train Dublin/Pleasanton bound train.

Five officers arrived at the scene and handcuffed four men. Grant, one of the men allegedly fighting, was laying on the ground when he was shot by what a police spokesperson called an "accidental misfire."

...

KTVU in San Francisco announced today that it obtained new video footage that shows two officers handcuffing a struggling suspect. The man is then shown lying on the ground while one of the officers pulls out a gun and fires a single shot into the victim's back.

...

http://freemediaproductions.newsvine.com/_news/2009/01/05/2275931-new-video-shows-out-of-control-cops-killing-unarmed-man

Oscar Grant was unarmed, restrained and then shot in the back before the police tried to destroy the evidence. Accidental misfire my ass.

[blondeatlast]

62. Right there is all the facts that are relevant. This was a huge miscarriage of justice.

"Thug. Drug dealer. Left his baby." None of the above mattered when he was shot, restrained and defenseless, by a rentacop.

Amazing how far some on this board will go to excuse the stupid and violent.

[blueamy66]

92. AMEN

The short and sweet....

[Nostradammit]

31. To be human is to choose not to be a total dick.

[Starry Messenger]

34. +1000

[apocalypsehow]

40. Personal attacks are the epitome of being "a dick."

"Physician, heal thyself."

[Nostradammit]

43. Indeed

and Amen.

[blondeatlast]

63. Amen. nt

[RZM]

69. That's not relevant here at all

Not any more than his criminal record, the fact that he had been partying, or that he had a child at home. None of it is. What is relevant is what happened to him at the station, which was wrong. Period. I agree that what happened was awful, but I also don't see why we should care how gentle his eyes were either.

[TBF]

86. I posted the picture not to cannonize Oscar, but to simply humanize him.

Because you know what, being tied up and executed by the police was wrong. Young adults were out celebrating New Years Eve, maybe they were rowdy - who knows - but they weren't carrying weapons and hadn't hurt anyone (at least not from the accounts I read).

Later in this thread I pondered what would happen if this were a group of rowdy white fraternity boys wearing their greek sweatshirts... we all know they'd be sent home to sleep it off. Instead we get this - a dead 22-year old and quite a handful of DU posters blaming the victim.

[lies and propaganda]

23. RIP A good kid and son to everyone who spoke of him. n/t

[TBF]

51. Oakland last night -

Many residents, upset with the verdict, took to the streets. Oakland Police immediately quashed that as well -

http://oaklandlocal.com/blogs/2010/11/police-hem-marchers-east-oakland


7:30 PM Police and city have issued a statement: "The Police Department has declared an illegal assembly and have made repeated announcements to disperse, allowing ample opportunity for the crowd to dissipate. Those that have refused to leave are being arrested and taken into custody."

9:00 PM More than 100 people have reportedly been arrested. Police at 7:30 PM were believed to have never issued a dispersal order, but immediately declared the area at 6th and E 17th a crime scene, warnimg media to "get out or they would be arrested too."

[RepublicanElephant]

53. so when does the federal civil rights trial begin?

and hopefully, the civil lawsuit against bart?

[TBF]

55. Both the family and some of Grant's friends have filed

civil cases against BART.

http://newyearsmovement.org/resources/coverage-of-johannes-mehserle-trial/mehserle-murder-trial-oscar-grant-family-civil-suit/oscar-grant-family-civil-suit-against-bart-for-wrongful-death-civil-rights-violations

[blindpig]

54. There are some really reactionary posts to this thread

speaks volumes, really. Defending the murder of a restrained, prone man, jesus. Aping the ruling class....

[Cal Carpenter]

56. It's sick

It's like a sickness.

Even if the kid was a 'thug' or a 'bad father' or whatever the fuck, HE WAS MURDERED by a cop and people are defending it.

What the hell?

[TBF]

59. If a group of white fraternity brothers were drunk on the same train,

wearing their greek sweatshirts, how do you think this would've gone down?

That's right, they would've been sent home to sleep it off. Instead we've got a 22 year old black man on the ground being executed by a racist lunatic.

[blondeatlast]

64. We have a winner. That's a perfect analogy. nt

[Starry Messenger]

58. Some of the responses in this thread make me want to vomit.

Grant was coming home from a New Year's evening out celebrating. His four year old "baby" was presumably at home asleep with mom and relatives. Because no young person ever goes out with friends when they have kids at home. :sarcasm: By the logic on this thread any young Irish guy who gets in a drunken fight on the MTA in Boston would also be fair game to be shot when arrested. Oh, I forget, every young black kid gets issued a glock before he goes out partying. :sarcasm:

[Gormy Cuss]

61. No need to bring Boston into it. Brawling blue collar white guys can be found right here

and it's doubtful that cops would tazed, never mind shot them after the guys were restrained and lying face down on a BART platform.

[Starry Messenger]

66. Very true Gormy.

I was half-awake posting this morning.

[blondeatlast]

65. HE WAS IN RESTRAINTS WHEN HE WAS SHOT DEAD. Nothing else matters.

He was utterly defenseless. There is NO excuse for his murder--I don't care if he was Jack the Ripper.

[Catherina]

72. Thank you. Nothing more needs to be said. n/t

[proud patriot]

85. exactly

bingo

[hfojvt]

94. I have seen that claim a number of times and it did not fit my memory

So I searched for the video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Tmh9B8LVxM In this video Oscar Grant is the guy in the middle. The guy on the right is in restraints, the guy on the left is not. At the 39 second point you can see Grant raise his hands, showing that his is not in restraints. It was while he was struggling with them as they attempted to put restraints on him, that he was shot.

[avaistheone1]

102. Yes, Grant was restrained.

An officer was kneeling on Grant's neck when he was shot (reminescent of the Rand Paul head stomper who stomped on a woman head and then her neck).

"The case began on New Year's Day, 2009, when Oakland police received a report that there had been a fight on a Bay Area Rapid Transit train. When officers arrived, they detained a 22-year-old African American man named Oscar Grant and four of his friends. Then, transit police officer Johannes Mehserle arrived on the scene. As one officer kneeled on Oscar Grant's neck, Officer Mehserle shot Mr. Grant in the back. He shot Oscar Grant, an unarmed man who had committed no crime. A man who witnesses say was attempting to diffuse the situation. The trial of former Officer Mehserle was moved from Oakland to Los Angeles due to extensive media coverage in the Bay Area. Los Angeles prosecutors have not won a murder conviction in a police shooting since 1983.

http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/07/08/4641826-hayes-no-justice-for-oscar-grant

That my friends is an execution of an innocent man being who was not only clearly restrained, he was lying on his back.

[political_Dem]

74. K and R. Mehserle should have gotten the full sentence, but he got a slap on the wrists.

What happened was a travesty. The court demonstrated that a person of color's life is less than a cent when it comes to justice in America. Although, I don't approve of riots, I believe people should have been mad as hell. What occured yesterday was cruelly unfair--no matter what anyone says.

I hope that his suffering family files a wrongful death suit against Mehserle. My heart goes out to them.

[Catherina]

96. “When you shut the fuck up, then we’ll call the ambulance.”

Bryson proved a formidable witness against the defense, however. His recounting of Grant’s shooting, which came after three hours of combative back and forth with Rains, gripped the courtroom. “Smoke was coming out of his back, and they turned him over and there was a puddle of blood,” Bryson recalled. “I said, ‘Oscar, Oscar, stay awake.’ Everybody started screaming his name,” Bryson recalled. Bryson remembered someone begging for the BART police to call for help, but being told: “When you shut the fuck up, then we’ll call the ambulance.”

“His eyes is there, but blood starts coming out of his mouth,” Bryson remembered, the emotion bubbling up in his voice. “‘Let me talk to him,’ I said, ‘I can keep him here. I know you don’t want him to die.’” Bryson told cops on the platform.

Behind me, court observers sobbed and winced in anguish. The grief and anger was still very fresh for people.

http://colorlines.com/archives/2010/06/defense_opens_with_gripping_testimony.html

Thank you political_Dem. It was cruelly unfair.