This post is from JASON TAYLOR:
It was 2 a.m. on New Years day 2009, when 22 year old Oscar Grant (African American), was shot in the back and killed by Bay Area Rapid Transit Police. At the time Grant was shot, he was unarmed, restrained, and handcuffed. Grant and several others were pulled from a train by BART police after a report of a fight. The train was held, while police detained all of the suspects involved. Three of the suspects were already handcuffed, while Oscar Grant wasn’t. He was cooperative with police officers as reported by witnesses, and as even seen on camera footage. Three officers pulled Oscar Grant from a seated position on the train station wall, to a face first position on the floor. As one officer held Grant by his neck to the floor, Officer Johannes Mehserle (who was on Grant’s back) pulled out his gun, took a step back, and fired a shot right into the back of the restrained Oscar Grant. The bullet entered Grant’s back, went through him, ricocheted off of the concrete floor of the station and punctured his lungs. As Grant lay there choking on his own blood, the police continued to handcuff him, and threatened passengers as well as his friends with arrest. The officers eventually called the ambulance, but it was too late. Oscar Grant died on the way to the hospital. The Officer, who fired the shot, clearly had no reason to even pull out his weapon; let alone fire it. There was even one point in the incident when Oscar Grant held his hands in surrender to the Officers who surrounded him.
What is even more horrific about this situation is that the police tried to confiscate all cell phone videos taken during the shooting, and initially claimed security cameras didn’t record the incident. It would seem that the guilt of killing an innocent man would be enough to convict any sane or rational person, but to try and cover up an obvious wrong with lies and deceit places this matter in an even greater level of unethical, unjust, and diabolical behavior done against another human being. It seems that despite of all the progressions of justice we make as a society, there are even greater strides made to produce an unjust society. The sad reality is that in many cases, those strides of unethical/unjust achievements are made by those placed in power as well as authority to protect and serve the people. What does a society do when angels become demons? What does a world do when the executive branch of the law or government has failed the people and when the protected needs to be protected from the “protector?” These questions really present a challenge of moral decline, and hopelessness in our world. Oscar Grant and so many others are the victims of such moral sin and iniquity committed by those who feel they are above the law, simply because they carry a badge. When we observe the character of our nation, we as people of faith are urged and pressed to pray, stand, and fight against every act of injustice from the police department toward our innocent brothers and sisters who are being slaughtered at this very moment. At this very moment, a four year old daughter is left without a father, due to the actions of Officer Johannes Mehserle on that New Year’s morning. Any police officer, who betrays the people he should protect by taking his or her life, belongs behind bars with all of the other murderers that our nation has claimed to protect society from.
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And God Grieves. What a poignant picture of man's inhumanity to man. The distressing thought is this was caught on camera even with the attempts at a coverup. I makes you weep to think of all that goes on that is never exposed. You have helped me answer a question that has been on my mind lately. With all of our obsession with technology, (computers, camera phones texting, living on-line etc.), where is God actively working through technology for the good of creation. Maybe being exposed to the darkness that often works within our so called protective agencies, teachers and legislators, we are brginning to see God,s worrking in technology.thansk for the call to step up our demand to work for change to our brokeness through active participation in education, legislation and doing the right (justice) thing.
ReplyDeleteGood investigative article on this:
ReplyDelete"The Cold-Blooded Murder of Oscar Grant: What Happened the Night of January 1, 2009"
http://revcom.us/a/159/OGrant-en.html
also a
walk-through narration of cell phone video at:
http://www.youtube.com/user/oscargrantjustice
Yes, indeed God grieves with not only Oscar Grant's loved ones, but with all the world. Bob, I agree that Jason's post provides some food for thought re: the good technology can provide. It happened again yesterday (a minor situation compared to that of Oscar Grant) where a bus driver for persons with disabilities rear ended an SUV because he was texting on his phone. The persons with disabilities, not the driver, called in the report of him texting, and the video camera on the van captured him. I'm wondering without the video footage if people would have believed those with disabilities.
ReplyDeleteAnyway back to what you wrote, Jason: "The sad reality is that in many cases, those strides of unethical/unjust achievements are made by those placed in power as well as authority to protect and serve the people. What does a society do when angels become demons? What does a world do when the executive branch of the law or government has failed the people and when the protected needs to be protected from the “protector?” These questions really present a challenge of moral decline, and hopelessness in our world." What poignant thoughts that yes, do point to a hopelessness. I think that we're called to remember that if we embrace the hopelessness, evil wins. We each have the "power of one" within us to stand up in challenging situations, be extreme out of love as MLK wrote, and be the voice for hope. However, I'm realizing more and more why community is so important to sustainability. The one person can get very tired, experience moments of disillusionment and despair, and come to believe that his or her actions have no impact. Community can help care for and sustain that single person and help keep hope alive. Evil wins when we succumb to isolation and forget about our interconnectedness. We never really know how our short term "touch" of people really plays out in the long run.
I think about Oscar Grant's daughter--what will the adults in her life do with this situation? How will they integrate the reality and horror that an appointed "protector" of society committed such a crime and attempted to cover it up? Will they use get caught in bitterness and hatred or will they become extreme out of love and bring a loud voice proclaiming the need for justice and righteousness to return? Wouldn't it be interesting if Oscar's daughter were to grow up a champion for truth? Just thinking . . .
Thanks for a most sobering and challenging post, Jason.
I went ahead and viewed the video of the murder of Oscar Grant. That's the only thing I could call it "murder". It was clear that he posed no threat to the police officer. Their is no justifiable reason why that officer pulled the trigger.
ReplyDeleteIt's hate that fuels actions like this to take place. It was the hate in Officer Johannes Mehserle heart that justified him pulling that trigger and putting an end to Grant's life.
It's a sad truth how things like this happen, especially by those you have sworn to protect and serve the innocent. But this abuse of power is not anything new; take for example the beating of Rodney King which then sparked the L.A riots.
I’m not sure that the problem with abusing power will ever end, when you have corrupt individuals assigned to a job they have not business doing than greed, money and hate will eventually run it’s course, such as the case of Grant.
Thank you for your post Jason, you choose a good topic that is hard to understand why it happens but unfortunately it happens every single day to the poor, minority and the underprivileged. You don't see rich white man treated the same way when confronted with the police. And your absolutely right it is a shame that the people who are here to protect the community are the ones tainted and unethical/unjust, making decisions based on their own opinions and prejudices of society and allowed to make 'mistakes' or judgment calls because of their badge.
ReplyDeleteJason,
ReplyDeleteYour post has me thinking about the way we train our police and military to be somehow semi-human or to look away from the slippery-slope of ethics. I'm sure there are many good people who enter both professions with a burning desire to help their fellow humans, but there are those who enter for not-so-noble reasons also. Then in the training itself one must become desensitized to violence and learn to treat fellow human beings as "other."
I have no answer..the task that these people have been asked to do is difficult, but the cost is so high in the loss of humanity and compassion.
Jason,
ReplyDeleteThe crime of being black in America is all this young man was guilty of. It makes me cry to think of all of the Oscar Grants that have been murdered off the grid. When people look at the hip hop "ganster" culture and wonder why jail house attire has been embraced as "cool" one only has to look at the staggering statistics of African American males in the penal system. What does a man do when he isn't allowed to be a man? What do a people do when they are sytematically denied liberty for centuries? To me, this is why the election of President Obama is so important. It's a very small sign that maybe, one day, everyone will live in the promised "liberty and justice for all" upon which America claims to stand.
Part of the problem, not all but part, is the pack mentality cops and soldiers (as well as thugs and hoods and terrorists) get into that gets them convinced that their job is to protect their pack, rather than the general public. This was so spotlighted by the way the L.A. cops acted in the '92 riots. In the early part of the Iraq invasion, this was also a huge problem in Baghdad, when no thought was given to securing the streets and getting life to be livable for ordinary citizens. Oscar Grant is, unfortunately, another in a long list of names whose stories should teach us something that nobody in authority seems to want to learn.
ReplyDeleteOscar Grants death is emblematic of the police state that we live in. In February, an African American man in my neighborhood was shot after a traffic stop. The police maintained that he pulled a gun on them, until the stories did not match up.
ReplyDeleteThe man was shot eleven times. And the police union sued to keep the names of the officers under wraps.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-oe-bobb12-2009apr12,0,3342424.story
What about the 13 year old killed when he was driving a car? Too many young men of color are lost when subjected to the police, yet time and again the perpetrators get away. The military is eerily similar. One is too many. The death of Oscar Grant was a murder, but it was also state execution. They may not have shot him in the head, but close enough. This is a travesty that once again, all people need to get involved in, not just the African American community.
This difficult reality reminds me how important the need for transformation is in our society. The way military, law enFORCEment are trained is a part of the issue. Forgetting the humanity of each individual, both Oscar Grant and Johannes Mehserle in those moments cannot be allowed.
ReplyDeleteRequiring a transformed (changed) sort of mind-set when encountering one another and stress filled moments require a new sort of training. Is society and individuals ready for this? We must be. Families are suffering at beyond alarming rates. The indifference with which we regard one another is no longer livable or tolerable.
Peace and thank you Jason for giving this your voice.
Thank your for this post. I agree that God does grieve for this incident and for all the other senseless deaths. But it brought to mind another incident in Oakland. Four weeks later, two officers tried to serve a ticket on a minor violation on an African-American man, he killed them and fled from the scene. Later there was a confrontation in pursuit of his arrest and further gunfire resulted in two more police officers being killed. The suspect was ultimately killed as well. While there were multiple of examples of public outcry over the killing of the young man in the BART station; there was virtually no public outcry over the deaths of the police officers.
ReplyDeleteWhere is the humanity of what is right? It is as significantly detrimental to human rights that police officers will gun down an unarmed, cuffed man in a subway station without probable cause as it is for another man to summarily kill four police officer's (three white and one African-American) who were attempting to arrest him on a minor warrant. Where was the public outcry for the police officers? Do they not have a family? Moreover, what drove each of shooters kill another human being? Fear? Hate?
Perhaps its about the general dissatisfaction with the social stratification in which we Americans find ourselves and the inability to find a reasonable voice from which we can emerge from these morose moments. There needs to be a serious conversation about whether this was truly about racism, police brutality, or about human relations.
This blog was difficult to read. It is hard to read about an unarmed man being shot in the back. Here there is no ethical dilemma...it is an obvious injustice. Then the injustice is heightened with the fact that the officers tried to hide any video evidence of the event. I believe they took it to a level that can only be called evil.
ReplyDeleteLast year, I read an interesting book called- Bonhoeffer and King: Speaking Truth to Power, by J. Deotis Roberts. In the book, King asserts that "evil is a stark and real entity (pg. 112)." Here, the action of the police officers is unfortunately very stark and very real. King also states that "evil is determined and never voluntarily relinquishes its hold...it must be attacked by a counteracting persistence, by the day to day assault of the battering rams of justice." So let the battering rams of justice knock down doors! As mentioned by others above, I also hope the media continues to cover these incidents, that the police officers will be held accountable and that Mr. Grant's family will find peace.
I think the training issue is huge. I have a few friends that are cops and another friend that is a sheriff. I know that they all had to start off guards in jails. I am closest to my friend that is a sheriff and I always ask her how things are going at work and if she has any interesting stories. It has been sad to listen to the change in her outlook from when she first graduated from the academy to where she is now, over a year into it. These cops and sheriffs are exposed to some of the worsts people around from the get go. They are taught that this is what everyone out there is like and when you are on patrol it is a fight for survival. They are taught how to take people down when needed, which seems to morph into taking people down when they want to, to knowing where the blind spots on the cameras are, to making a split second judgement which sets the tone for the inmates treatment. After spending a year to three years in jails and prisons, it is no wonder law enforcement can be ask dark and violent as Jason reminded us. I think revisions need to be made in how we initiate law enforcement after graduation if we really wish to make a change.
ReplyDeleteBy Sangjae Lee
ReplyDeleteWhat a horrible story! I'm very sorry that my expectation is broken. Because before I moved to America, I thought that America is the country of eualitarianism. However, I could know that there is still racial prejudice and discrimination, especially for Asians, African Americans, and Latinos. As one of Asians, I experienced the discrimination(I'd like to believe that it was not discrimination) when I was admitted into America. For example, it is true that there are many Korean illegal sojourners in America, but I felt that the Immigrant officers looked at me as one who trys to illegally stay. The problem is that many people judge others with their colors. It is necessary to see people as they are and have the image of God. If so, the horrible accident will not happen again.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThough protecting the people is the priority, I'm sure we all understand that police brutality to this degree is unacceptable by humane standards. Would you agree that we would take those officers off the force for such unnecessary actions? We would be quick in wanting to take them off, yet knowing that the police force is small compared to the general population it is called to protect, could we afford to? Sadly, for the sustaining power of the police force, it requires able bodies to serve in such a career. So what could we do to prevent something like this?
ReplyDeleteIt is quite a dilemma when dealing with the issue that police forces are shrinking, crime is increasing, and panic is slowly rising everywhere. Should we assume that every police officer entering the force has some complex? If we do, we might have a smaller force of much more educated, well-mannered group of officers, or officers who are just as cunning and manipulative. For the officers who went in with the intent to protect and serve the public that slowly changed to protect and serve oneself, what would bring them to such a point? How shall we go about having a more ethically sound police force while weeding out the less-moral officers? How shall we go about protecting the safety of the minority or the misrepresented while decreasing the available protection for the rest of the public?
Questions abound and excuses quickly fall into place. Systemic injustice, taught hate, taught brutality, police/military training, racism, pack mentality, etc... all attempts to answer the heartbreaking questions: WHY? Why did this happen? Why does it keep happening? And How can we stop it? We are taught that we shouldn't stereotype yet our society teaches our police and military to do exactly that. To look out for types and make quick decisions based on them. Scientists often tell us that the need to stereotype and classify our surroundings and experiences is an evolutionary necessity. We need to do that to protect ourselves from what is dangerous. For me this means avoiding all spiders even though they might not be dangerous. Instinctually I know I need to avoid them because some are dangerous. This skill was used by our ancestors to keep us alive. The problem now is that our stereotyping is no longer acting as an advantage. We are typing people unjustly and deeming dangerous what is not. We as humans need to evolve. We need to learn to protect ourselves without this typing. I admit that the mentality of the need to protect ourselves is part of the problem. This is certainly the case, i think, with our over investment in military and war. But it would be naive to deny the need to protect ourselves. At this point I have no suggestions except to look to our faith. I believe Christ was teaching us a new way to be and a new way to address injustice without violence. To me this is the transformation we need.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry, too, Sungwan, that you have been disappointed by the realities of life in America. To the idealist and to the newcomer, it certainly must be a harsh reality to find that all our dreams do not come true.
ReplyDeleteI'm with Bob here on the technology issue, I often think about the role technology plays in our personal freedoms and wonder whether or not we're helping ourselves or doing irreparable harm by recording everything everywhere. I think in the end the benefits of citizen-journalism outweigh the negatives but I think we have a ways to go. I think this case in particular illustrates some of the potential negatives that we have to deal with. While ubiquitous access to recording and broadcasting tools can throw open the doors of secrecy, lack of journalistic impartiality and the ability to report events without adding color from personal bias can instantly color a situation for the entire world. Of course, I feel for all of the victims in this case, my heart grieves for the family and friends of young Oscar Grant but I have to wonder if we have all of the facts in this case. I have watched the videos and, to me, it is impossible to see what is happening clearly. I can't begin to imagine the stress that officers of the law are under in these situations-we have heard too many stories about police officers being shot dead during routine traffic stops or when serving warrants. Perhaps this is evidence of my own bias, but it is impossible for me not to wonder if there is something other than pure hatred that caused this situation to escalate. The one thing that most saddens me is that the officer in this case who did the shooting has already been tried and convicted by the public. How can there be a fair trial at this point? The mob mentality that triggers riots, violence, and destruction without even hearing a statement from the accused saddens me at a deep level. Again, perhaps it is my position of privilege that causes me to miss something critical about this situation but I can't help but grieve for the family of Officer Mehserle at this point as they endure the results of the public vilification of their own loved one.
ReplyDeleteIt so hard to hear of the story of someone dying. It breaks my heart to think of one life lost. There is a part of me that agrees with Chris that there could be more to the story and there is a part of me that wants there to be more to the story but is worried that there really isn't. I keep hoping that technology will be used to help and not hurt.
ReplyDeleteWhat a truly horrible situation. The officer displayed the horrible things that humanity is capable of. When you asked, ". What does a society do when angels become demons? What does a world do when the executive branch of the law or government has failed the people and when the protected needs to be protected from the “protector?” It made me think of how God has granted us the freedom of choice, and with this freedom we unfortunately also have to deal with other people's horrible and inhumane choices. But that does not mean that does not meant that we should believe that these choices are right or just. We are called by God to act upon love and fight for love for everyone. We are called to ask for healing for both the family and man that was impacted by the officer’s actions and also for the officer he. We must turn our other cheek and show love to those that are incapable of expressing it themselves so we may truly try to love the was Jesus did. No one said it was going to be easy.
ReplyDeleteThis story is pretty startling, especially the intended suppression of cell-phone evidence. When we no longer have recourse to basic evidence of innocence, the legitimacy of the entire system seems to come into question.
ReplyDelete