Crime

10th Anniversary Vigil of Oscar Grant’s Slaying By BART Policeman at Fruitvale BART

Published

6 years ago

January 3, 2019

Tatiana Grant stood with her grandmother, Wanda Johnson, at the vigil for her father at Fruitvale Station on Tuesday afternoon. Photo by Amir Saadiq.

About 200 people came out for the vigil marking the 10th anniversary of the death of Oscar Grant III by a BART policeman on New Year’s Day in 2009.
Just a couple of hours into the new year, Grant and some friends were on their way home when a scuffle broke out on the train.
Restrained, lying face down on the platform while outraged passengers recorded the chaos on their cell phones, Grant was shot by Johannes Mehserle and died at the hospital. Galvanized by the injustice and sharing the grief of Grant’s family, community protests and organizing forced the prosecution of Mehserle, leading to his conviction for involuntary manslaughter in 2011.
At each annual vigil, members of the family, including Grant’s daughter Tatiana, now 14, gather at the station that they are lobbying to be renamed in Grant’s memory.
“We are claiming that,” Wanda Johnson told the crowd and BART appears to be ready to unveil a mural in March.
Grant’s friends and poets gave Spoken Word tributes and community leaders like District 3 Councilwoman Lynette Gibson McElhaney and Cat Brooks of the Anti- Police Terror Project also expressed their support.
BART director Lateefah Simon told the crowd that Grant’s death inspired her to seek office.
Among the speakers Tuesday were Grant’s mother and Cephus “Uncle Bobby” Johnson, who along with his wife, Beatrice, took up the mantle of the Oscar Grant Foundation until Wanda Johnson’s grief subsided.
Since then, Cephus Johnson’s Love Not Blood Campaign has offered succor and support
to the families of people across the Bay Area and the nation who have lost a loved one to police terror.
The martyrs are well known like Trayvon Martin of Sanford. Fla., in 2012, Michael Brown of Ferguson, Mo. In 2014, Mario Woods in San Francisco in 2015 and most recently Agustin Gonsalez, killed in November 2018 in Hayward.
Web site information from the San Francisco Chronicle and Essence magazine contributed to this report.

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Activism

‘Donald Trump Is Not a God:’ Rep. Bennie Thompson Blasts Trump’s Call to Jail Him

“Donald Trump is not a god,” U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., told The Grio during a recent interview, reacting to Trump’s unsupported claims that the congressman, along with other committee members like vice chair and former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, destroyed evidence throughout the investigation.

Published

1 day ago

December 18, 2024

Oakland Post

Congressman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss. Courtesy photo.

By Post Staff

U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said he not intimidated by President-elect Donald Trump, who, during an interview on “Meet the Press,” called for the congressman to be jailed for his role as chairman of the special congressional committee investigating Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, mob attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“Donald Trump is not a god,” Thompson told The Grio during a recent interview, reacting to Trump’s unsupported claims that the congressman, along with other committee members like vice chair and former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, destroyed evidence throughout the investigation.

“He can’t prove it, nor has there been any other proof offered, which tells me that he really doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” said the 76-year-old lawmaker, who maintained that he and the bipartisan Jan. 6 Select Committee – which referred Trump for criminal prosecution – were exercising their constitutional and legislative duties.

“When someone disagrees with you, that doesn’t make it illegal; that doesn’t even make it wrong,” Thompson said, “The greatness of this country is that everyone can have their own opinion about any subject, and so for an incoming president who disagrees with the work of Congress to say ‘because I disagree, I want them jailed,’ is absolutely unbelievable.”

When asked by The Grio if he is concerned about his physical safety amid continued public ridicule from Trump, whose supporters have already proven to be violent, Thompson said, “I think every member of Congress here has to have some degree of concern, because you just never know.”

This story is based on a report from The Grio.

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Oakland Post: Week of December 11 – 17, 2024

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of December 11 – 17, 2024

Published

6 days ago

December 13, 2024

Oakland Post

To enlarge your view of this issue, use the slider, magnifying glass icon or full page icon in the lower right corner of the browser window.

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Outgoing D.A. Pamela Price Releases Report on County Gun Violence Epidemic

The 84-page report is divided into two parts: the Public Health Impact of Violence and the Contribution of Structural Inequalities; and the Public Safety Impact of Gun Violence and the Regulation of Firearms. Each section documents trends in rising gun violence in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, with special attention to the rise in gun-related deaths of women and children in Alameda County. Each section advises innovative approaches for the County to address gun violence and build safe communities.

Published

1 week ago

December 8, 2024

Oakland Post

Exclusive interview with County D.A. Price days before recall election. Photo by Ken Epstein.

Pamela Price was recalled in the election on Nov. 5. File photo.

By Post Staff

Criminal Justice Reformer District Attorney Pamela Price, who is leaving office this week after losing a recall election, released a comprehensive report on the gun violence epidemic and public health emergency in Alameda County: “Tackling Gun Violence Epidemic in Alameda County: A Public Health Emergency (2019-2023).”

This report represents an unprecedented collaboration between public safety and public health partners and provides data and recommendations to guide the County’s continued work to reduce violence while advancing justice reform.

Each section documents trends in rising gun violence in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, with special attention to the rise in gun-related deaths of women and children in Alameda County. Each section advises innovative approaches for the County to address gun violence and build safe communities.

“Between 2019 to 2023, an average of three residents were killed by firearms each week in Alameda County, and behind every statistic is a shattered family and community,” said Price.

“Under my administration, the DA’s office has taken bold steps to combat gun violence while promoting equity and healing for survivors,” she said.

The report highlights strategies for keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous people. Last month, the DA’s office secured a $5.5 million grant from the California Judicial Council to help improve compliance and case management for gun cases and gun relinquishment orders —the removal of guns from people prohibited from possessing a firearm – with law enforcement and court partners.

This effort builds on Price’s work in 2023 and 2024 in attacking the gun violence epidemic.

“We launched an innovative Gun Violence Restraining Order Outreach Project to educate communities about the availability of tools to remove guns and ammunition from people who are a danger to themselves and others and the intersectionality of domestic violence and gun violence and convened gun violence roundtable conversations with our law enforcement partners and collaborated with the Alameda County Public Health Department to produce this comprehensive report,” she said.

“We supported Oakland’s CEASEFIRE program through its transition and implemented a pilot Mentor Gun Diversion Program with our collaborative court partners, offering non-violent youth in possession of a gun pathways to interrupt the potential for escalating harm.” added Price.