Today it seems like I'm the only one on this side of the United States affected by the verdict in the Oscar Grant murder trial. The officer shown in the video above, Johannes Mesherle was convicted of involuntary manslaughter after what seems like an obvious shooting of Oscar Grant in the back. Days after this happened there was a firestorm of video and eyewitness testimony about the shooting. There was a lot of outrage in the public, including my rant from January 9, 2009. After the several cases of police brutality against Blacks here in America with little to no conviction I came to a shocking revelation: I am Oscar Grant.
I say I am Oscar Grant because as a young black male I could easily be the target of some "misunderstanding" with police and my murder, the mourning of my passing, and trial of the officers who will have gotten off scott free will have been in vain. What will it take for justice to be served in these cases? Incidents like this further extend the gap of trust that exist between African American men and law enforcement. Incidents like this are why Oscar Grant may have resisted initially. And incidents like this are why Oscar Grant, Sean Bell, and others will end up as the faces of police injustice in the United States.
I am Oscar Grant, Trevor Casey, Sean Bell, Johnny Gammage, Ousmane Zongo, Nathaniel Sanders II, Amadou Diallo and even Mike Brennan; an African-American teacher beaten by two off duty officers in Austria as he exited a train. I am a nameless faceless individual who, sadly stands a chance at being beaten, hospitalized, or killed because of the color of my skin.
Unfortunately this is nothing new. Incidents like this are the fodder for movie plots old and new. In Set it Off, Stony (played by Jada Pinkett-Smith) lost her brother to a barrage of police bullets after being stopped, told to lie on the ground and attempting to remove a celebratory bottle of wine from his jacket before doing so. Training Day shows the side of abuse from the perspectives of the officer who commits the abuse and the partner who is internally charged with stopping him. Ironically, Denzel Washington won an Oscar for this role. Finally deceased rapper and son of former Black Panther, Tupac Shakur who had his own issues with the law wrote"...cops give a damn about a negro, pull a trigger kill a nigger he's a hero." A sobering truth was said by Jay-Z on The Black Album in that, "this ain't a movie, dog!"
So where does this leave us? Whether it's one shot by one officer or fifty shots by four officers, the highly recognized and referenced cases above say one thing: the unlawful assault and murder of African American men by law enforcement carries little to no sentence. With all of the names listed above only one survived. Police brutality against Blacks has been prevalent since the Jim Crow era and it seems that although laws have been changed to recognize Blacks as humans, Black men are still hunted by men with guns who won't serve any time for their murder.
When caught in the flashing lights of a police cruiser, we might as well be deer as we are stunned as to what will happen next. With each confrontation with an officer of those charged with protecting and serving Black men are in some cases sitting ducks.
Like Oscar Grant, I am a man with a daughter. Being in that position I have to wonder what my daughter would be told if it were me who lie on the floor of a San Francisco subway station being arrested for God knows what, and then being shot in the back. The court of public record, youtube, and other sites would allow her to research my case and even witness my murder. But the court of law would have let her fathers murderer off with what equates to a slap on the wrist. That's why I am Oscar Grant. Like a math equation, my name, yours, or the names of millions of other Black men could be plugged in as the variable and the outcome would equate the same.
No justice no peace; Know justice know peace.
First, while no consolation, I'd have to say that getting a conviction in this case is a step. A very small step, however, a step nonethe less.
ReplyDeleteSecond, we have to look at the potential charges that this officer could face. The judge presiding over the trial ruled that Mehserle could not be tried for 1st Degree as he lacked the requisite premeditation. So now that leaves 2nd degree, voluntary, and involuntary manslaughter.
In California 2nd degree murder is defined as an unpremeditated killing of another with malice aforethought. A jury would need to find 1) an unlawful killing and 2) accomplished with malice aforethought, whether express or implied.
Voluntary manslaughter is defined as an unlawful kiling that is committed without malice but with conscious disregard for life.
Involuntary manslaughter is when the killing is in the commission of an unlawful act, not amounting to felony.
So based on the video footage, the officer was never going to be convicted of either 1st or 2nd degree murder. The requisite intent is not there. So lets look at the manslaughter charges. The key mental requirement for voluntary manslaughter is malice. As it seems, the officer was intending to reach for his taser and not his gun, this act is negligent, not malicious. So, assuming the prosecutor has a brain of any sort, this element would have been easy to disprove.
So, this leaves us with involuntary manslaughter, with a max of 4 yrs. Sadly, this isnt enough for the officers negligence, but in this case, justice was served by the book...justice just happens to fall short of the mark everyone would want.
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