Remembering Oscar Grant: Justice Denied Again

Johannes Mehserle-Oscar Grant

So many young African American men are murdered each year and most of them are forgotten by the public at large, leaving only their family and friends to mourn the loss. How quickly people forget.

Do you remember Oscar Grant, the central figure in the recent film “Fruitvale Station”? Grant, 22 years old, was fatally shot by a San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) police office as he lay face-down on an Oakland train platform in 2009. No African-Americans were chosen for the jury, which was composed of 8 women and four men. Seven of the jurors were white, three Latino, one Asian-Pacific Islander, and one declined to state race. The jury found the police officer guilty of involuntary manslaughter despite a number of video taped recording of the crime and numerous witnesses.

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