Wednesday, January 07, 2009

The Calm Before the Storm-Oscar Grant


The word for today is… “quiet.” It’s been an eerily quiet day. The calm before the storm, perhaps?

Dethroned Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was joined in jail by his girlfriend Christine Beatty for her 4 month bid. Beatty, like Kilpatrick, has been known to be particularly mouthy (sorry, no pun intended given the nature of those text messages!). But Christine went off to jail in dead silence; a far cry from her yelling “don’t you know who I am!” at law enforcement.

Ashley Todd, the liar from Texas who claimed a Black man carved a “B” for “Barack” on her cheek, quietly began her probation program. All those conservative bloggers who initially believed Todd's lie, and bordered on racism in their support of her, are now oddly quiet.

Stephon Marbury still sits quietly on the Knicks bench, standing firm on his claim that his $20.9 million contract be honored as part of his buyout.

And, there should a hell of a lot more noise being made to get to the bottom of the MURDER of Oscar Grant, a 22-year-old. Grant was yanked off of a train by BART (Bay Area) police who were investigating some kids fighting in another compartment of the train (we know now there was no fighting). Grant, who was riding with family members, pleaded his innocence. Officers first threatened to taser Grant. Witnesses report Grant begged not to be stunned, first because he was not involved in any wrong doing, and then because he has a toddler daughter. Officers then pressed Grant’s face and belly down flat on the concrete. One officer stood on Grant’s neck. Another officer—Johannes Mehserle-- stood over Grant, unholstered his gun, and fired a shot into Grant’s back. In the words of the Grant family attorney, “without so much as flinching the Officer Mehserle stood over Grand and mercilessly fired his weapon, mortally wounding Mr. Grant with a single gunshot wound to the back.” Grant never saw it coming. See KTVU footage of the murder of Oscar Grant here. And a different view from Alameda County News here.

(Image: Oscar Grant)

4 comments:

Adam said...

You said that we now know that there was no fighting. Do you have a link to a news story about that? That just makes me even more worried about the BART police - why did they pull them off the train in the first place?

alicia banks said...

tragic!

yet another wake up call for the "post racial" usa

peace
ab
OUTLOOK
http://aliciabanks.blogspot.com

Sisterdoc said...

Adam: The poster directly below you--Alicia Banks--has a few interesting links to the Grant case as well. As you know by now, the whole affair is all over the media, and (sadly) resulted in an uprising that landed more than a few folk in jail...putting them in harms way among more gun toting individuals.

Sisterdoc said...

Alicia: Are you still doing your radio show?