Early News Years day a brawl on the Bay area transit system, BART, led to the detaining of a few men believed to be involved in the fight. What transpired that night is now the cause for uproar and extreme protesting in Oakland and the surrounding area.
After the men were detained and hand cuffed there is clear footage of one of the men, Oscar Grant, being shot in the back by one of the police officers. This is such an outrage due to the fact he was unarmed, hand-cuffed, and obviously no threat to the officers at all.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlfNNiwoa_E
The issue of police brutality has been a huge issue in the black community for years, and sometimes seems to fly under the radar do to the “he said, she said” lack of hard evidence. With this new incident, lack of evidence is the least of worries. Due to a multitude of home video footage of the incident from other passengers on nearby trains, and the emergence of internet distribution this is internationally visable.
Since the incident there have been daily protests at the Fruitvale BART stop, where it happened, causing the stop to be temporarily shut down. There has also been a march International Blvd. in Oakland to protest the shooting, which has led to a few of the outraged protesters to light fires in a movable garbage can, and they also nearly tipped over a police car.
My personal issue with the aftermath of this horrible incident is the lack of national news coverage. With a story of this magnitude I feel that the issue of police brutality that looms in so many urban communities nationwide finally has a voice and evidence and needs to be taken a lot less lightly than it has been. This incident can be compared to the Sean Bell incident which happened last year and received national media coverage due to the fact it happened in the nations largest city.
My prayers go out to the family of Oscar Grant, and hope that his death is not in vain but part of a bigger movement to help clean up law enforcement efforts all over, and bring it back to the way it was originally intended, which is to protect and serve.