[News] Oscar Grant - Oakland's Not for Burning?

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://www.counterpunch.org/

January 9-11, 2009


Three Simple Proposals


Oakland's Not for Burning?

By GEORGE CICCARIELLO-MAHER

Oakland.

In 1968, Amory Bradford penned a volume entitled 
Oakland’s Not For Burning, documenting the 
tinderbox that the city had become, and the 
lamenting the inevitability with which it would 
explode. But the assertion contained in the 
book’s title was hardly credible, 
<http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9506E3D6173EF935A3575AC0A96E958260>coming 
as it was from a Yale-educated former Wall Street 
lawyer and New York Times general manager whose 
only business in Oakland came via the U.S. 
Commerce Department. Some forty years later, in 
the early hours of this year of ostensible hope, 
the reality of the persistence of racism in 
Oakland became devastatingly clear, sparking a 
powerful response the likes of which this city 
hasn’t seen in years. But luckily, the 
condescending voices of moderation, like that of 
Bradford a generation prior, seem have little 
traction with those who have seen enough police murder.

A New Year’s Execution

After responding to reports of “a fight” on a Bay 
Area Rapid Transit (BART) train, BART police 
detained the train at the Fruitvale station, 
forcibly removing several young men from the 
train as dozens of bystanders watched. Several of 
the men, all young and mostly black, were lined 
up, seated, along the platform. Some were cuffed, 
Oscar Grant was not. As he was attempting to 
defuse the situation, BART police decided to 
detain him, placing him face-down on the 
platform, with one officer kneeling near his 
neck, and another straddling his legs. For some 
still unexplained reason, one officer, now 
identified as Johannes Mehserle stood up, pulled 
his gun, and fired a shot directly into Oscar Grant’s back.

The bullet went through Grant’s back, ricocheting 
off the platform and puncturing his lung. There 
are gasps from the bystanders and shock on the 
face of the other officers, who clearly didn’t 
expect the shot to be fired. Grant, who was 
begging not to be Tasered at the time of the 
shot, clearly didn’t expect it either. But this 
surprise notwithstanding, the decision was then 
made to cuff the young man as he lay dying. As an 
added precaution, BART police then sought 
immediately to confiscate all videophones held by 
the train passengers, in an effort to cover up 
the murder. Luckily for everyone but the BART 
P.D. and Mehserle, several videos managed to make 
it into the public domain, where they went viral 
and were viewed on Youtube hundreds of thousands 
of times in the following days. In a rare show of 
journalistic integrity, local Fox affiliate KTVU 
<http://www.ktvu.com/video/18409133/index.html>aired 
one of the videos in its entirety.

The standard protocol---deny, distort, 
cover-up---had clearly been disrupted, and BART 
spokesman Linton Johnson even went so far as to 
criticize the leaking of the video, 
<http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/07/MNOV154P0R.DTL>arguing 
that rather than clarifying events, public access 
to the video would “taint” the investigation. 
BART was on a back foot, and popular anger was on the offensive.

A Corporate Police Force

BART Police are a notoriously problematic 
organization, existing in a gray area between 
public and private, funded by taxpayers but 
operating under a corporate structure which lacks 
all accountability and oversight. 
<http://www.sfbg.com/entry.php?entry_id=7813&catid=4&volume_id=398&issue_id=413&volume_num=43&issue_num=15>According 
to the 
<http://www.sfbg.com/entry.php?entry_id=7813&catid=4&volume_id=398&issue_id=413&volume_num=43&issue_num=15>San 
Francisco Bay Guardian:

The structure of the BART police force is a 
recipe for disaster. BART’s general manager (who 
is not an elected official and has no expertise 
in law enforcement) hires the BART police chief
 
There is no police commission, no police review 
board, not even a committee of the elected BART 
board designated to handle complaints against and 
issues with the BART police
 There is, in other words, no civilian oversight.

And this “disaster” has been more than merely 
hypothetical: in 1992, a BART cop shot unarmed 
Jerrold Hall in the back of the head with a 
shotgun as he walked away, after firing a warning 
shot. In 2001, BART police shot a mentally ill 
man who was unarmed and naked. And 
<http://www.sfbg.com/entry.php?entry_id=7814&catid=4&volume_id=398&issue_id=413&volume_num=43&issue_num=15>according 
to Tim Redmond, writing in the same paper, “BART 
made a monumental effort to cover [the Hall 
slaying] up,” and in the end, “Nothing happened
 
BART called the shooting justified.” As of 
yesterday, BART hadn’t yet interviewed the 
officer, Johannes Mehserle, who insisted on 
invoking Fifth Amendment rights not to speak. And 
just when they claim to have compelled him to do 
so, he abruptly resigned, thereby ending any 
internal affairs investigation that may have 
taken place. There still remains, according to 
BART, a criminal investigation, but if the past 
is any indicator, this won’t get far.

But let’s not fool ourselves. Even publicly-run 
organizations like the Oakland Police Department, 
which has all the ties in the world to elected 
power, operates with an informal shoot-to-kill 
policy for black teenagers. This was as clear in 
the 
<http://www.counterpunch.org/maher09242007.html>2007 
murder of Gary King as it is with Oscar Grant 
today. And since the district attorney 
responsible for bringing charges against the 
police works closely with these same police on a 
daily basis and in a shared enterprise of 
delivering convictions, we should not be 
surprised that not a single police murder in 
recent years has even seen disciplinary action. 
“No one 
<http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/06/BAVT154HIG.DTL&tsp=1>we 
talked with,” writes the Chronicle, “from the 
district attorney's office to lawyers who work 
either side of police shootings - could remember 
a case in the last 20 years in which an on-duty 
officer had been charged in a fatal shooting in Alameda County.”

Does It Matter What Really Happened?

We have all seen the video, and rumors are 
swirling about how to interpret its contents. The 
officer clearly fires a fatal shot into Oscar 
Grant’s back while the latter is face-down on the 
floor. A flurry of “experts” have intervened to 
give their analysis. While such expert testimony 
usually functions to justify the police, even 
among these experts some are shocked and 
disgusted by what they see. One expert, after 
concluding that the gun had accidentally gone 
off, watched video from another angle, after 
which he 
<http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/07/MNOV154P0R.DTL>changed 
his conclusion: “Looking at it, I hate to say 
this, it looks like an execution to me.”

Others are insisting that Mehserle meant to pull 
out his (less fatal) Taser, but this theory has 
since been discredited. Firstly, a Sig-Sauer 
handgun weighs three times what a Taser weighs, 
and the shape is completely distinct, and another 
expert noticed in the tape that the officer had 
previously withdrawn his Taser, located for 
safety reasons on the other side of his belt. In 
other words, he knew he was going for the gun. 
Hence the claim of accidental discharge, but this 
too raises a serious question of plausibility: 
when Mehserle drew his gun, Grant couldn’t see 
it, and so there could be no claim that it was 
meant to threaten the victim into passivity. In 
the end, if Mehserle is ever forced to give a 
statement, he will likely turn to the 
tried-and-true excuse that he “suspected” Grant had a gun in his pants.

But none of this matters, all the debate of the 
officer’s “intention” only serves to reinforce 
the fact that, while white cops are allowed to 
have intention, this is a quantity denied to 
their victims. This fact of racist 
double-standards is not lost on those who, 
realizing that there will be no “justice” in this 
case, have taken to the streets to demonstrate 
their rage at the unprovoked execution.

“I’m Feeling Pretty Violent Right About Now”

While friends and family were gathered for 
Grant’s funeral, a number of organizations called 
a demonstration where he was killed, at Fruitvale 
BART station. Circulating by internet and 
Facebook, the call reached many thousands, and in 
the end some 500-600 protestors and mourners came 
together to 
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7J4ccdP3Bs8>make 
speeches and lament this murder. At a makeshift 
memorial behind the BART station, candles are 
burning, and 
<http://www.indybay.org/uploads/2009/01/08/justice_for_oscar_grant_007.jpg>hand-written 
messages appear: “Oscar, we watched you grow up 
from a lil’ boy down the street into a man,” and 
“O., RIP, peaceful journey, God only pick da best.”

As an indication of the contrasting sentiments 
that divided the crowd, where someone had 
scribbled “Fuck the police,” another had covered 
the expletive with another message: “Forgive.” 
But forgiveness wasn’t on the minds of many. 
Several of the more radical protestors climbed 
onto the BART turnstiles, displaying a red, 
black, and green flag. One shouted:

I’ve got the mentality of my parents who were 
Black Panthers, I’m tired of talking, I’m 
thinking like L.A. in 1992. Y’all can have your 
megaphone speeches, I been through that, I’m 
black, I don’t need more speeches.  Let’s take a 
stand today, because tomorrow ain’t promised!

While some on the mic attempted to soothe the 
crowd, insisting that burning up the city was 
“too easy” and “useless,” the message didn’t seem 
to resonate much with the crowd. And why should 
it? We were standing in the middle of “Fruitvale 
Village,” a corporate paradise in the middle of a 
historically Latino district, which clearly 
doesn’t belong to the local residents. It was 
clear where the momentum was going, as the 
biggest cheers went up for the more radical 
voices who seized the mic: “I’m feelin pretty 
violent right now,” one insisted, “I’m on some 
Malcolm X shit: by any means necessary. If I 
don’t see some action, I’ma cause a ruckus myself.”

Oakland Burning

While some remained to hear additional speakers, 
including hyphy hip-hopper Mistah FAB and the 
recently-founded Coalition Against Police 
Executions (CAPE), several hundred 
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g0mLrRL0LA&feature=related>set 
out on a militant and rapidly-moving march north 
on International Boulevard. The police response 
was initially hands-off, despite the tenor of the 
chants: “No Justice, No Peace: Fuck the Police,” 
and “La Migra, La Policia: La Misma Porqueria.” 
If those in the passing cars and stuck in traffic 
were of any indication, the local population knew 
exactly what was going on, why we were 
protesting, and were largely sympathetic.

As the march wound around Lake Merritt, it turned 
sharply to the left, a shortcut to BART 
headquarters. This seems to have thrown off the 
police, who were clearly unprepared for what came 
next. A single police car, parked sideways at 8th 
and Madison to prevent access to the BART 
headquarters, became the target of the crowd’s 
increasing fury. Sensing the tone of the crowd, a 
cop reached in and grabbed her helmet before 
scurrying away. Within moments, 
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DzqfE-LDzM>the 
police car was destroyed and nearly flipped over, 
and a nearby dumpster was burning.

A few seconds later, the air was thick with 
teargas. Evidently, seeing their own property 
destroyed was too much for the police to stomach. 
(Note: there is no truth to 
<http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/01/08/BART.shooting/index.html>the 
CNN report that tear gas was deployed to protect 
a surrounded officer). I get a noseful of 
teargas, and a protestor near me is shot in the 
stomach with a rubber bullet, and needs to be 
helped off, as the crowd quickly sprints north 
toward downtown. Passing through Chinatown, 
dumpsters full of fresh produce are emptied into 
the street to slow the march of a line of riot 
police. When the crowd reaches Broadway, there is 
momentary confusion, with some continuing 
straight to Old Oakland, some pushing left toward 
Jack London Square, and others urging a move rightward toward the city center.

The police took advantage of this momentary 
indecision, with a full line charge that send 
many of the furious demonstrators sprinting and 
left many arrested. When the crowd regrouped, it 
was promptly encircled at 14th and Broadway, and 
a standoff ensued. Either by design or by a 
predictable quirk of the police organization, 
nearly every riot cop in the street was white, 
some sneering defiantly. And if the crowd of 
demonstrators was largely multiethnic, it was 
clear by this point that the functional vanguard 
was composed largely of the young, black 
teenagers most acutely aware of their 
relationship to the police. There were chants of 
“We are all Oscar Grant!” and several protestors 
lay in the middle of the street with their hands 
behind their backs, mimicking the position in which Grant was executed.

Some small fires were set, and the police moved 
in again, pushing the crowd down 14th toward Lake 
Merritt. The spearhead of the demonstrators 
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5361rUgc-Fg&feature=related>rushed 
forward to shouts of “We the police today!” 
smashing and torching vehicles, and while this 
was done out of anger it was far from irrational, 
as the press will certainly present it. Rather, 
it was the result of a very clear line of 
reasoning that goes something like this: we have 
to do something, and in the face of police 
impunity, this is all we can do. Nothing would be 
more irrational than a blind faith that the 
police will do the right thing, given all the 
historical evidence to the contrary. While the 
press is doing its best to find bystanders to 
decry the “vandalism” involved, it couldn’t 
ignore the testimony Oakland Post reporter Ken 
Epstein, who was writing an article on the 
killing when he looked out his office window to 
see his Honda CRV in flames: “I’m sorry my car 
was burned,” 
<http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_11401338?source=most_viewed>Epstein 
admitted, “but the issue is very upsetting.”

The crisp wintry air swirled and the lights 
twinkled along the surface of Lake Merritt as 
demonstrators demolished a local McDonalds, at 
which point a line had clearly been crossed: a 
police armored personnel carrier came tearing 
down the street at 45 miles per hour, firing 
rubber bullets and sending the crowd scattering. 
The scene was surreal, with padded riot cops 
leaping off the vehicle in an effort to win an 
impossible footrace with younger and fitter demonstrators.

Dellums Steps In, Steps Out

 From the early moments of the demonstration, the 
position of the mayor, Ron Dellums, was at issue. 
Here was a mayor with a great deal of popular 
respect, with longstanding civil rights 
credentials, but who had done little to slow the 
pace of police killing, among the other ongoing 
ills plaguing postindustrial Oakland. With tear 
gas swirling and the APCs circling, the mayor 
decided to make his appearance at around 9pm, 
walking the few blocks from City Hall down to 
14th and Jackson to 
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WFxAVlKQ44&feature=channel>address 
the angry crowd himself. Several times he 
attempted to scurry away under hard questions 
that he could not answer, with the standard 
responses: we should all take it down a notch; there will be an investigation.

I don’t remember what it was exactly that I 
yelled at the mayor, but it certainly got to him. 
As he was leaving the crowd, he turned and walked 
directly up to me, putting his face a mere inches from my own.

Dellums: What I want people to do now is calm 
down. I’ve told the police to stand down, and I 
hope you all can do the same. Both sides need to 
be peaceful right now so we can find out exactly what happened.

Me: But we know what happened! We’ve all seen the 
video: A cop pulled his gun and shot an unarmed 
black man in the back. And you know there are 
reasons that certain people have guns pulled on them and others don’t.

Dellums: There are two processes currently underway


Me: The process is if I shoot someone, I’m 
arrested. But if a cop shoots someone, he gets 
put on paid administrative leave until everyone forgets about it.

Dellums: I’m asking both sides to be peaceful


Me: Both sides? I haven’t killed anybody, this 
crowd hasn’t killed anybody. The police have 
killed somebody, and you’re in charge of the 
police! Who runs this city? When will the prisoners be released?

Dellums: Soon


Dellums then returned to City Hall, surveying the 
damage. But as he entered, the angry crowd 
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAAUje6CTzQ>booed 
thunderously. And despite his claim that the 
police had been ordered to stand down, 
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qINg49yFPSw>clashes 
broke out immediately on the same block, more 
fires broke out, and more teargas was deployed. 
The mayor’s intervention could do little to calm 
Oakland’s frazzled nerves. His claim that the 
people have lost faith in the police rings empty 
for people who never had such faith in the first 
place, people who have seen vicious police murder 
after police murder without so much as an indictment.

The demonstrators continued to express their 
pent-up rage, engaging in running battles until 
nearly 11pm, when a mass arrest seems to have 
quelled the resistance for the moment. All in 
all, official numbers show 105 arrests (including 
21 juveniles), more than 80 of which occurred 
after Dellums claims to have told OPD to stand 
down. Who knows if his promise of a speedy 
release means anything at all. 
<http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/01/08/18559980.php>Support 
and solidarity demonstrations are scheduled this 
week for the prisoners’ arraignments, and with 
another mass mobilization scheduled for next Wednesday, this is far from over.

Intention as Privilege

As I have said, and at the risk of controversy I 
will repeat: it doesn’t matter if Mehserle meant 
to pull the trigger. He had already assumed the 
role of sole arbiter over the life or death of 
Oscar Grant. He had already decided that Grant, 
by virtue of his skin color and appearance, was 
worth less than other citizens. And rather than 
acquitting the officer, all of the psychological 
analyses and possible explanations of the 
shooting that have been trotted-out in the press, 
and all the discussion of the irrelevant elements 
of Grant’s criminal history, have only proven this fundamental point.

If a young black or Latino male pulls a gun and 
someone winds up dead, intention is never the 
issue, and first-degree murder charges are on the 
agenda, as well as likely murder charges for 
anyone of the wrong color standing nearby. If we 
reverse the current situation, and the gun is in 
Oscar Grant’s hand, then racist voices would be 
squealing for the death penalty regardless of 
intention. And yet when it’s a cop pulling the 
trigger, all the media and public opinion 
resources are deployed to justify, understand, 
and empathize with this unconscionable act. One 
side is automatically condemned; the other automatically excused.

For now, the fires are out. But despite the 
soothing words of Barack Obama and Ron Dellums, 
there is no lack of fuel and no lack of spark in Oakland.

George Ciccariello-Maher is a Ph.D. candidate in 
political theory at UC Berkeley. He lives in 
Oakland, and can be reached at gjcm(at)berkeley.edu.




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