[News] Demand justice for Oscar Grant Wed., Jan. 7, 3-7pm, Fruitvale BART Station, Oakland

[Anti-Imperialist News]

<http://www.sfbayview.com/2009/oscar-grant-young-father-and-peacemaker-executed-by-bart-police/>Oscar 
Grant, young father and peacemaker, executed by BART police




Demand justice for Oscar Grant Wednesday, Jan. 7, 
3-7 p.m., Fruitvale BART Station, Oakland

by Davey D
<http://www.sfbayview.com/wp-content/uploads/oscar-grant.jpg>
Oscar Grant, 22, murdered in cold blood by BART police just two

Oscar Grant, 22, murdered in cold blood by BART 
police just two hours into the new year, was the 
loving father of a 4-year-old daughter, a fact he 
told the police just as he was shot. He worked as 
a butcher at Farmer Joe’s Marketplace.

By now everyone has seen the horrific videos of 
an Oakland BART police officer shooting an 
unarmed Black man, Oscar Grant, while he lay face 
down on the ground and was fully cooperating. The 
man who was killed execution style was the father 
of a 4-year-old girl and was considered a 
peacemaker. In fact moments before he was shot he 
was pleading with his friends who were all cuffed 
up to calm down and be cooperative with police. 
Grant was seen begging the police officers, who 
had pulled tasers out and pointed them at the 
heads of his friends, not to shoot.

For reasons unknown to us, the police officer 
pushed Grant to the ground. One officer kneeled 
on his neck while the other officer pulled out a 
gun and shot him point blank in the back. The 
bullet went through his back, hit the ground and 
bounced back up and pierced his lung, killing him.

The police then ran around and terrified 
witnesses by taking away their cell phones and 
video cameras for “evidence.” The video, which 
was shot by a witness named Karina Vargas and has 
been seen by everyone on KTVU, was also going to 
be confiscated, except her train started moving 
as police attempted to snatch away her camera. 
The cops obviously did not see the other video cameras buzzing away.

What went down this New Year’s morning is a very 
disturbing sight and it has the entire city of 
Oakland on edge. Adding insult to injury is the 
refusal of BART police to acknowledge any 
wrongdoing. Police Chief Gary Gee says the tapes 
are inconclusive and he has thus far refused to 
even release the name of the police officer who is now on paid leave.

We have also come to find out that the young men 
along with Oscar Grant were snatched off the 
train by BART police who did not know whether or 
not these young men were involved in any sort of 
altercation. In short, it could’ve been any one 
of us pulled off the train that night.

Following is an interview broadcast Tuesday, Jan. 
6, on Hard Knock Radio on KPFA 94.1 FM:

Davey D: I was listening to a number of speeches 
and old news clips that went all the way back to 
the murder of Bobby Hutton here in the city of 
Oakland and was remembering the harassment and 
the beat-down that Tupac Shakur got and going 
through just this long list of Black males who 
have been killed unceremoniously by the police 
department right here in the city all the way up 
to last year or the year before when everybody 
was down on protesting for the Jena 6 - and Gary 
King, 20 years old, was shot and killed in the 
back by an Oakland officer right here on 54th and Martin Luther King.

And this is just something that is ongoing and I 
guess the challenge before us in the aftermath of 
the execution of Oscar Grant, 22-year old father 
who was a peacemaker trying to get everybody to 
calm down - his friends, the police - who was 
seen on videotape around the world not 
struggling, cooperating, who was seen on 
videotape around the world, his face on the 
ground, his hands behind his back, as an officer 
shot him point blank, killing him.

And then that officer who our tax dollars are 
supposed to make sure that he protects and serves 
didn’t even have the courage to hold a press 
conference and say this is who I am and say his 
name. The last I heard he hadn’t even been 
interviewed. And then shame on the other officers 
around the Bay Area that saw this thing.
<http://www.sfbayview.com/wp-content/uploads/oscar-grants-mother-wanda-johnson-baby-mama-sophina-mesa-at-press-conf-010409-by-dan-honda-oakland-tribune.jpg>
Oscar Grant, 22, murdered in cold blood by BART police just two

At a press conference Sunday called by John 
Burris, the family’s attorney, Oscar Grant’s 
mother, Wanda Johnson, and his daughter’s mother, 
Sophina Mesa, comforted each other. – Photo: Dan Honda, Oakland Tribune

And we have people protesting all around the 
country and people upset, including our guests 
that we are going to talk to. You didn’t see any 
of them (other police officers) having a press 
conference to say, “Wow, we are appalled at the 
behavior of one of our own.” It’s something to think about.

In the studio this afternoon we have Evan Shamar, 
one of the individuals who was outraged enough to 
get a number of people to go down to the BART 
headquarters to protest what was going on, and on 
the phone line with us is another activist in the 
community, Dereca Blackman from Leadership 
Excellence. First of all welcome to the show.

Evan, I want to start off with you. What went 
through your mind as a young Black male when you 
saw this and where have things gone since you’ve 
seen this videotape and gotten word of what went down?

Evan: Just to premise my thoughts, no horror film 
can ever compare to the images which we saw. I 
want to start off by saying, a young developing 
human life was deemed insignificant by the ones 
sworn to protect and serve, to uphold justice, 
and the police wonder why they’re forced to carry 
around the stigma that we correspond with corruption.

They perpetuated this stigma to our reality and 
now we are left with Oscar Grant, a 22-year-old 
father - he’s just a memory now - and we’re 
supposed to swallow the fact that it may have 
been an accident. Well, I’m here to tell 
everybody, on behalf of everybody’s outrage, that 
we’re not going to swallow it; we’re not going to 
take it. This is not going to stop. We don’t want 
to see this officer put on administrative leave, 
we don’t want to see this officer terminated or 
fired, we will not stop until we see this police 
officer put on trial in an American courtroom for first degree murder.

Davey: That’s real talk right there. You know, 
talk about the type of exchanges that took place 
when you all went down to headquarters.

Evan: You know, we went down there; we were very 
peaceful. We had a small amount of people at 
first; then after a while people joined in and 
supported our efforts. The police were actually 
the most combative ones there if you really want to get down to it.

Davey: Combative in what way?

Evan: In the sense that they were trying to tell 
us to disburse, that we couldn’t be there when we 
even had a permit to be there. They were using 
physical force part of the time. I was actually a 
victim of one of the police officer’s physical force.

Davey: What did he do, put his billy club on you or 
 ?

Evan: One of the police officers actually 
 I got 
approached by a group of three officers and of 
course I was intimidated given the circumstances 
of what had happened. Three of them walked up to 
me and told me, “Sir, you’re going to have to get 
out of here” and one reached for his billy club 
and then reached for something. I don’t know what 
he was reaching for. The other one just took his 
forearm and positioned it as though it was a 
weapon and basically rushed me and threw me into 
somewhat of a bush. Now I didn’t fall but he rushed me.

Davey: Wow, and this is happening during the protest?

Evan: This is at the protest that we had 
organized that took place the day before yesterday.

Davey: Dereca Blackman, you’ve been an activist 
from Detroit all the way up here to the Bay. This 
movie we’ve seen so many times, what do you think 
we should do? The community that is outraged, 
what steps do you think they should start taking 
to move beyond the usual things that we’ve done 
in the past, which has been protesting and asking 
for some sort of redress from the mayor and 
government officials. That seems to not have 
changed, at least in our lifetimes. What do you think needs to happen next?

Dereca: Thanks again, Davey, for taking a lead on 
this issue and making sure that everybody has 
good information and thanks to Evan for putting 
together the rally for tomorrow. I think a lot of 
times when we talk about rallies and protests, 
people get frustrated because they don’t see it 
as part of a long-term solution. These are 
short-term solutions and they’re not going to solve long-term problems.

I think part of the issue is that long-term 
solutions require a variety of approaches and 
they require consistency. And we as a people have 
to look not just at what’s happening with this 
particular case, we need to look at what’s been a 
process that has continued to happen. And when 
you had John Burris (attorney for Oscar Grant’s 
family) on the other day, he was talking about 
some of the laws that have been passed that have facilitated this problem.

So we’re raising questions right now about police 
confiscating people’s cell phones for taking 
picture and videos of what was happening. What’s 
the legality behind that and how do we prompt 
ACLU and others to make a comment to those kinds of things happening.

What’s happening with the police officers’ union 
such that they’ve been able to pass measures and 
laws that allow them to not be interviewed so 
that they have time to get their story together? 
So now all of a sudden we’re hearing that he 
thought he was reaching for his taser. But they 
had days to get that story together as opposed to 
being interviewed on the spot about what happened.

So these are some of the things that we have to 
push back against. And we have to be vigilant. I 
think that this is a unique moment in history 
because all of us, whether it was through the 
election of Ron Dellums as mayor of Oakland or 
whether the election of Barack Obama as president 
of the United States came with a level of hope 
that we might have some integrity as individuals 
who would hold people accountable when things like this happen.

This is the moment. I think the legacy of Mayor 
Dellums in this city is right here on the line 
right now because if he doesn’t have the 
integrity to confront this issue - and it’s not 
necessarily about what he has the power to 
control. He has influence as a statesman and a 
local and national leader to make this issue of 
police accountability and police brutality 
relevant and important and discussed locally and 
nationally. He can make that happen.

And likewise, we need to take this issue all the 
way to the inauguration festivities and make sure 
police brutality becomes a part of the national 
agenda. I was mad about Abner Louima. I was mad 
about Amadou Diallo. I was sad at Gary King. I 
was sad at Sean Bell. Now I’m just tired, now I’m 
just fed up and we have to move with certainty - 
not just on short-term solutions but on long-term 
vigilance - to watch, monitor and maintain as 
laws are passed to facilitate the taking away of our rights.

Davey: That’s the voice of Dereca Blackman. Let 
me ask you, Evan, first of all before I get to my 
question, if you can let everybody know what is 
going on tomorrow, so if anybody who is listening 
if you could take down a piece of paper and 
pencil and write down this information so you can 
join the protests that are going on tomorrow. A 
lot of people have been wanting to know how they can plug in.

Evan: All right, so tomorrow we have a protest 
that’s going to take place from 3 to 7pm. We’d 
like everybody to get there at 3:00 at the 
Fruitvale BART Station where the victim was 
executed by the BART police officer. That takes 
place at 3 p.m. at Fruitvale BART and we will be 
set up in front of the vigil that has been set up 
by the friends and family. We ask that everybody 
come out with ambition, with vigor and with a voice.

Davey: Bring your cell phones and video cameras 
since the police made it a point to try 
. Well, 
they took a number of cell phones is the reports 
we’re getting that might be under the auspices of 
having evidence. We would like everybody who 
comes out to the protest to be a citizen journalist 


Dereca: We just got a message, Davey, that some 
folks were down at Fruitvale today just to check 
things out and the police asked them if they had 
permits. So we already have an issue escalating 
right now that they are already blocking our 
rights to organize and peacefully protest. And we 
will be peaceful tomorrow and we want to make it 
clear that we do have a right to peacefully 
protest and we’re already having a strategy 
session around this issue of permits. We will rally tomorrow.

Evan: I actually sat down with, I was in City 
Hall yesterday and today for about three hours 
and I was trying to get this rally permitted. And 
they didn’t blatantly reject it but they gave me the run-around.

Davey: Let me ask you this: Here you are a young 
man in the city who is organizing people. You 
seem bright and you seem to be the type of 
individual that folks in power say we need more 
of. You know, you’re not somebody who is adding 
to the crime rate and the statistics or any of these things.

Have you heard from the city officials? Did Mayor 
Dellums look and see, “Hey, that’s somebody who 
was like me when I was a young man, trying to 
fight the power, so to speak”? Did you get any 
phone calls or encouraging conversations? Have 
people reached out to you to say we want to support you?

Evan: I haven’t. In fact, I’ve just been getting 
what I consider just discouraging information. 
I’ve actually gone down to the Mayor’s office 
where I was escorted out for bringing up the 
execution of Oscar Grant. They acted as though 
they didn’t want to speak about it.

I mean they’re not even trying to say ANYthing 
about what took place. This is just egregious and 
they’re not even saying anything. I mean we’re 
supposed to swallow that they’re sorry, that the 
officer may have gone for his taser? This officer 
went to something called a police academy, (had) 
extensive training that trained him on how to 
handle himself in a stressful situation, and now 
he’s trying to say that it was an accident?

You’re trained so that accidents don’t happen. We 
can’t let accidents cost human beings their 
lives. This man Oscar Grant was a father of a 
4-year-old child and now that child doesn’t have 
a father to sleep with her at night. This is just 
ridiculous and we will not sit back and let this 
type of action by the ones who are sworn to 
protect and serve slide. We will just not sit 
back and let this happen. We will be on the front line.

Dereca said it best when she said this is the 
moment. Dereca, you are absolutely right. This IS 
the moment. We are on the front lines and it is 
time to stand our ground. We will not go quietly 
into the night. We are going to stand up for what 
is right and we will get justice for Oscar Grant.

Davey: That’s very sobering remarks. I want to 
thank you for coming in and sharing this with us. 
Dereca, any last comments that you would like to 
make to give people marching orders, some things 
to consider? We ask people to bring cell phones, 
to make phone calls to their local 
representatives, congressmen, assemblymen, mayor, 
whoever, and invite them to this rally and show 
up themselves and make sure that, as the old 
saying goes, the whole world is watching.

Dereca: Absolutely, so I think there are a number 
of things that people can do: We want to stay on 
top of our prosecutor; we want to make sure that 
this case is fully prosecuted. We want to 
continue to contact BART and talk to them about 
having an interview with this officer right away. 
We want to make sure that there’s a civilian 
review board. There will be a number of 
strategies that will be talked about at the rally tomorrow.

But I also want to say that this is not the only 
rally. This case has been picked up on the 
national media; it was on the front page of the 
CNN website. And I just got word that Harry 
Belafonte is going to be coming for another rally 
next week, so this is the first rally but there 
will be another one next Wednesday at a place to be determined.

So this is not just a rally, people. This is a 
movement that we’re asking you to come out, sign 
up and be a part of this. You can be a part of 
this in an ongoing way. We’re starting in Oakland 
but we’re taking this all the way to the White House.

Davey: We appreciate that. Evan Shamar, I would 
like you to make the connection to the very real 
tragedies that are taking place right now halfway 
around the world in a place called Gaza, in the 
Middle East. And we have a lot of our comrades 
and fellow activists and friends and allies that 
have been protesting since the days before 
Christmas for almost the same type of executions 
that seem to be routinely taking place (here).

Many innocent people are losing their lives on 
behalf of our tax dollars. Do you make the 
connection to the types of conversations that are 
going on overseas with what is taking place all 
too often with us and the police in cities like Oakland?

Evan: Absolutely, I like to refer to what’s going 
on overseas as just a blatant all-out massacre 
compared to what we have here that I consider to 
be a genocidal crockpot. What’s taking place here 
is it’s a slow-cook. We’re being eradicated slowly, one by one.

But what’s going on in Gaza is just disgusting. I 
can’t even really speak on it because I’ll get so 

. It’s something that instills a certain level 
of disgust in me. I can’t talk about it all the 
time. But I definitely can make the correlation 
between the two. As I said, what we have is here 
is a genocidal crockpot and what’s going on in 
Gaza right now is a pure massacre.

And we’re actually going to be out on Saturday as 
well at the Civic Center protesting what’s going 
on over there because the bottom line is these 
are human beings. The human experience is a 
beautiful experience, and we can’t just deem it 
insignificant for no reason. I mean, I was 
talking to my buddies a few days ago about how 
many human beings have lived on planet Earth. 
There’ve been 120 billion human beings who have lived on planet Earth.

Let everybody have their turn. It’s our turn to 
have this experience. Don’t deem it insignificant 
- for your greed, for your corruption. Let us 
live. Let us live our lives. What’s going on in 
Gaza, what’s going on in Oakland, what’s going on 
all over the world, we have to put our foot down. 
We have to put our fists in the air in unity and 
say, “No more!” We won’t take this. It’s not a 
Black thing. It’s not a white thing. It’s not a 
yellow thing. We need to come together and stand 
up for what is right. And together we can do this.

Email Davey D at 
<mailto:mrdaveyd at aol.com>mrdaveyd at aol.com and 
visit daveyd.com. Listen to Davey on Hard Knock 
Radio Monday-Friday at 4 p.m. on KPFA 94.1 FM or kpfa.org.

<http://www.sfbayview.com/2009/oscar-grant-young-father-and-peacemaker-executed-by-bart-police/>http://www.sfbayview.com/2009/oscar-grant-young-father-and-peacemaker-executed-by-bart-police/ 




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