Attention Bay Area bloggers: We've been closely monitoring the progress of the People v. Johannes Mehserle trial, one of the most racially charged police cases of recent years. Mehserle, a white former Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer, stands trial for murder in the shooting of an unarmed black man, Oscar Grant, on the platform of an Oakland rail station.
The jury will resume deliberations at 8:30am PT and the case may be decided later today. We're looking for your perspective on the trial, especially once a verdict is reached. Do you think the case was correctly decided? What does the incident (and its coverage) tell us about race relations in the Bay Area and America at large? What's the reaction to the verdict like in your community? Have protesters taken to the street or were the concerns of Oakland Violence Prevention Network Coordinator Kevin Grant overblown? Let us know your opinion and what's going on in your area. Be sure to tag your posts Mehserle verdict.
UPDATE: The jury has finished for the day without reaching a verdict. It will reconvene tomorrow (Thursday) at 9am PT. We still want to hear your thoughts once the verdict is announced.
UPDATE #2: Mehserle was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and faces a sentence of two to four years in prison.
UPDATE #3: The police arrested 83 people in Oakland after peaceful protests in response to the verdict degenerated into lawlessness. The Department of Justice has announced that it will review the verdict. What are your thoughts on the riots? What's the reaction like in your neighborhood? Should the federal government become involved?
whatsthematterwithks
Michael Humphrey
Charles Yoo
Kerry Lauerman
Joan Walsh
Salon.com
Comments
While I feel for the victim, his friends and family, this is not a national story. If the killer wasn't a transit cop this would be a killing like happens several times a day all around the country.
Are you trying to hype and over blow this for some reason? It is what it is, a sad story, but a local story with no major importance.
A waste of a Open-Call to subject an important happening to peoples' attempts to draw attention to themselves or their own causes.
predictable responses....hrmmm. I don't know what a predictable response is these days to police brutality or violence. Yawns? That's predictable. Outrage? Hard to find the energy, right?
But the fact that you see it (or peoples' responses) as unoriginal and predictable says something too.
I live in San Francisco. I ride Bart trains. I see racial divisions and poverty and violence regularly. The humanity of that Oscar Grant, 22, who was shot as he lay face down on a bart platform, means something to me and to many of the people I know who live here.
Maybe you are geographically too far removed (?).
I went to Mr Grant's church, know Mr. Burris and Mr Dellums, commuted on BART when it was first inaugurated, and have observed many of the dumb rednecks and racists who have been routinely brought in to corrupt the Oakland and BART Police force for decades.
There's a lot missing from the reports, but I fear that it would be a waste of time to tell about it.
America sucks today and that is all.
I'm not certain why you have to demean me in order to make your point.
I said nothing about the brutality and pointlessness of the killing but merely that it was a silly topic for an open call because there are only a very few possible points of view. I lived in San Francisco for years, my son and his family still do. I am quite aware of all the racial division/rich-poor dichotomy, etc. etc, etc. I am not unfeeling; what I am is absolutely straightforward about this topic.
The topic is suitable for an editorial, for investigative reporting, for anything enlightening. What it isn't is a good topic for eliciting lots of diverse opinions - there can't be many opinions on a murder; the editors are just pimping for contributions.
Then people like yourself can write a few paragraphs about how terrible yada yada, how much you care, yada, yada - and others will think you are wonderful and a deep person.
Lots of heat, no light.
I didn't think that I was demonizing you, merely pointing out what seemed to be obvious: that your response appeared fairly emotionally cold and I was trying to understand that. (from what you wrote here). You seem to imply about yourself at the end that a person might not have heat but they still might have light...so maybe you are taking offense when you don't need to.
And as for "there can't be many opinions on a murder..." that's interesting but not quite true when murders become part of the discussion of police state/protester violence. this is bigger than just a "murder" for most of the people I know. as for editors "cashing in" this is what editors are hired to do. no?
I didn't realize there was an open call when I wrote a post about it so I guess I wasn't thinking of it that way.
Please consider yourself undemonized by me if that helps at all. But zumalicious points out that there's a lot missing from the official reports about the person who died that day. and investigative reporting can be done by bloggers too. you never know.