Authorities & Corporate Media Grossly Exaggerate Oakland Riot
Reports
by Davey D
So last week after the demonstrations
for Oscar Grant, a 22 year unarmed, non resistant father
executed in plain view of hundreds by a cowardly BART police officer,Johannes
Mehserle who was finally arrested last night after two weeks of us
waiting and protesting. we had to endure endless news reports and commentary
most likely fed from police accounts and echoed by newspaper reporters who were
not even on the scene that suggested that the city was burning and people were
out of control. These pundits got on their pedestals and made pompous
pronouncements about how the 200 young people who broke away from a larger
demonstration held at the Fruitvale BART station in Oakland where Grant was
killed on New Years morning, to march to downtown Oakland did irreparable
damage.
The reports that went around the world was that over 300 businesses were
destroyed and that hundreds ran amok in the streets. Well now we are finding
out those reports were GREATLY exaggerated. As was reported on KTVU Channel 2
which was the TV station to first air the gruesome execution, the actual damage
was 40-45 windows smashed and a couple of dozen garbage cans thrown in streets
mostly on 8th, 14th and 17th, the latter two had been closed off to traffic.
There was no looting. No gunshots. No robberies.
What many news reports focused on was the footage of people burning a police
car and setting a nearby garbage bin on fire. It made for good television it
got people talking and more importantly it got key officials to finally start
moving and addressing the situation. Those actions on the streets reflected the
undescrible anger that many were feeling especially since up to that point six
full days had passed and the Mayor, district attorney, BART officials and other
major leaders had made no public announcements to ensure residents that justice
would be carried out. No one came forth and expressed shock, horror and grief
at seeing such a heinous act. No one came forth and said 'do not worry this
will be thoroughly investigated. We did hear from BART police Chief Gary
Gee who told us that the video was inconclusive. We did hear from a
BART spokesperson that the officer Johannes Mehserle had not
been interviewed by officials and was on paid administrative leave.
Shocked residents had to also endure some mainstream outlets like the SF
Chronicle newspaper and KPIX TV who tripped over
themselves to report early on that Grant had a criminal past and had served
time in jail-which in most people's eyes had little relevance to him being shot
point blank while he lay face down with his hands behind his back after playing
the role of peacemaker and pleading with officers to not shoot him because he
had a 4 year old daughter. The manner in which such reporting was done is the
equivalent to us hearing about a rape and then announcing to the world that the
victim slept around a lot.
Early
that morning leading up to the night the so called 'riots' broke out, one
hundred Black leaders, mainly clergy from all denominations, several Black
elected officials, and the heads of numerous traditional civil rights
organizations were turned away by long time District Attorney Thomas
Orloff when they went to his office to get some answers as to what his
intentions were and find out why no charges had been brought up against the
officer. It's not everyday that the community makes a visit to the District
Attorney hence he should've been more than willing to accommodate folks. His
office was called the day before to announce that folks were coming and it
wasn't like he was busy and not around. What Orloff did was try to pick one or
two people to come meet with him, which was rejected by the group who insisted
that this elected public official set brief everyone in one of his conference
rooms. At one point the Oakland Mayor's Chief of staff who showed up about a
half hour into the process was denied a sit down by one of Orloff's aids. Yep I
stood right there and witnessed the rejection with my own eyes..
Three people from the group agreed to talk to Orloff to negotiate a place, time
and space when he could address the entire group. Eventually a conference room
was set up-after folks endured a stand off and negotiations for close to an
hour. The dozen or so press that was on hand was told they were not allowed to
come into this tax payer supported office and get the information first hand.
The Black leaders did not object to press being present District Attorney
Orloff did.
What we experienced during that meeting was a guy who seemed to be dismissive
at times and somewhat arrogant. He didn't supply too many answers to our most
pressing questions and even when vigorously challenged by several within the
room. He made it clear that charges levied on the officer rested squarely on
his shoulders. He stood between the community demanding justice and the officer
who killed Oscar Grant. Orloff told the group that he wasn't going to share
this conversation and answers with reporters and that it was up to the group to
pass along the information he shared with the group to the rest of the
community. At was at that point that some of us whipped out our camera phones
and recorders to ensure we could accurately communicate to our community what
Orloff was talking about. I have to be honest I feel uncomfortable with a guy
like Orloff prosecuting this case. Will he go the full nine or just do a half
ass job resulting in an acquittal or this officer getting off on some sort of
technicality?
I feel even more uncomfortable after learning from former Black Panther Emory
Douglass that Orloff was part of the prosecuting team that went all
out to derail, incarcerate and jam up the Panthers back in the days. We all
know the controversial history surrounding that.
Adding to this backdrop leading up to the night of the 'riots' was Ron
Dellums still had not spoken publicly and then about an hour before
the planned demonstration at Fruitvale BART station, he scheduled a press
conference at the exact same time on the other side of town. Some people seemed
to think that was no big deal, all one had to do was get on BART and get from
one locale to the other. The problem was BART shut down the station thus making
it difficult for people outside the immediate area as well as reporters to get
to both locations. The Mayor sent an aid to the rally, who read statement of
apology about a 45 minutes into the rally. People booed and rejected the
apology. That's when a number of folks said it was high time to march down to
city hall. They wanted their grievances heard before key decision makers.
Now we can go back and forth all day about the effectiveness of marching and
direct action demonstrations.. Most of us including myself don't get down like
that or condone innocent people's property getting smashed, but as I noted that
is what finally got things moving. There was no mayor at the early morning
meeting, not even a rep from his office. The DA had to be forced to sit down
with folks. The officer wasn't talking and no decent cop or group of decent
cops had the forseight to address the community and assure the public that what
they witness was not good police work and did not represent them. It was
silence.. But not no more..
And not that two wrongs don't make a right, but I've seen police cars get
torched and windows smashed for far less including after sporting events and
raucous frat parties on nearby campuses. From here to Philly and involving
everyone rowdy Raider fans to rowdy Philly fans to rowdy students at top 10
schools like Cal and Stanford. Am I the only one recalling riots after damn
near every Big Game resulting in stores along Telegraph and Bancroft Avenue
boarding up their windows. Several years ago extra police units were called
onto the field moments before the game ending to make sure our best and
brightest-future generation scholars didn't go buck wild, but we rarely hear
pompous concerns about rampaging college students.. If anything reporters seem
to bend over backwards to put such activities into perspective. They'll point
out it was handful of folks and not castigate the entire city or student body.
They'll issue glowing reports about the events that took place before hand and
not define a larger event by those actions which they describe as out of the
ordinary.
Having been on the scene that night on 14th street I did see what went on when
the 30 or so people ran away from the 40 or so cops in riot gear that had shot
tear gas after a cup water was thrown in their direction. I got that on tape..
People ran down the streets and as they did some folks wearing scarves threw
stones and spark plugs busting up car, store windows and bush stop shelter
windows as they ran. Others followed down the street not so much with the
presence of mind to break windows but to avoid being captured by police who at
that time started picking off individuals. Most of us who found ourselves on
14th street were in awe of the fire that was set to the car of an Oakland newspaper
reporter who saw his car set ablaze as he was typing about the happenings up
the street.
The over exaggeration of damage was a way to minimize and take away from a
police execution of an unarmed man laying face down on the ground begging for
his life as a 6'5" police officer coldly shot him? Oscar Grant to our
knowledge wasn't fighting breaking windows, burning cars or nothing like
that... and what went on on 14th street in downtown Oakland should in no way
remove focus from this young father of a 4 year old daughter.
One has to ask was this over exaggeration of damage an excuse to justify the
police bringing out what looked like a small army tank coupled with scores of
police who outnumbered the protestors? It must've been because I sure enough
heard a lot of pundits who weren't there explaining how Oakland's finest was
overwhelmed. I don't think so..Was it an excuse to justify all the overtime
paid out?
What is interesting to note is that those arrested that night got charged and
were forced to show up to court the next day. Many of those arrested were
simply on the scene watching. One of those swept up and arrested was a
newspaper editor and reporter Minister of Information JR of
the SF Bayview and POCC who was there taking pictures and documenting what was
taking place. When I saw him at his arraignment he ran down all sorts of
stories of people who were getting swept up by overzealous police. They ranged
from young brothers getting tasered to 40+ year old Japanese man who just came
upon the scene himself. The fact that he's an outspoken critic of police
terrorism makes us wonder if he became a convenient target. many of the folks
got slapped with misdameanor charges, he and some of the other brothers got hit
with felonies.
Lastly another criticism being levied by
armchair pundits was 'why are folks in the streets about this police killing
and not protesting when other crimes take place'? The question itself is faulty
because it implies the community doesn't care and that everyone is comfortable
with crime. Ray Ray shooting Pookie over drug turf or a petty beef is not
something that the average citizen can safely confront. If they are of a
criminal mindset then it would be fool hardy to directly confront them.
It also implies that there hasn't been any marches or vigils. Nothing could be
further from the truth such activities take place all the time. It was just
last week that there was huge march and vigil surrounding the gang rape of a
sista in Richmond. There was another vigil/march for a former Oakland resident
who came back to visit from Atlanta who got gunned down.. Over the years we
seen large marches with organizations like Silence the Violence and Lovelife to
name a few.
In addition many of the folks who organized last week's rally are involved with
organizations that they formed that try to take preventative measures. In other
words they work with 'at risk youth' and try to show them a better way so that
they don't ever have to get caught up in the legal system. Some have leadership
camps, others have after school programs. Some run training and skill
enhancement outfits. It ranges. Sadly those efforts are rarely recognize, by
critics who wanna know why we the community doesn't object to Black on Black
crime. Some people have argued that such prevention efforts are ineffective
because our communities are still saddled with crime. I'd like to remind folks
that the billions spent in tax payer money for the War on Drugs, dozens of new
prisons in this state along, hundreds of extra cops, state of the art weapons
etc hasn't made a dent in crime either. So whats really going on?
The other thing to keep in mind is that the police are there to protect and
serve. When they kill or get killed its a big deal. Our tax dollars pay for
their training. Our tax dollars pay for their salaries. Our tax dollars pay for
their funerals if they get killed in the line of duty. And our tax dollars pay
for their defense if they are accused of killing someone or behaving recklessly
and brought up on charges.
And lets be real honest right here..this horrific crime was caught on video
tape. It was brutal and harsh eye opener for a whole lot of folks. In all
fairness, one could make the case that many of the people who came out last
week for Oscar Grant have not come out for other police killings even when they
were emersed in controvesry. The big difference here was seeing this on tape.
It clearly moved people into action.
Hopefully the actions taken are such that it puts a significant dent in this on
going problem of police terrorism.