by Jack Lee
(BREAKING NEWS SPECIAL)
The City of Los Angeles, Oakland, braces for possible rioting over a jury trial with racial overtones. The case involves a white police officer, 28 year old Johannes Mehserle, a former BART police officer. He is accused of second degree murder in the unlawful shooting to death of Oscar J. Grant III, a 23 year old black male during an arrest. The case went to the jury yesterday and a verdict is expected soon.
BART police had responded to a report of disturbance in an Oakland subway station involving a number of males blacks. Several of those involved were arrested, including Grant. During the arrest Grant became combative and officers were forced to restrain him. He was placed on the ground and they attempted to handcuff the struggling suspect. A small groups of spectators gathered, shouting obscenities at the police officer. They were quickly trying to cuff Grant and remove the offenders before the crowd could grow larger.
During the tension and confusion of the moment former Officer Mehserle told jurors that he mistakenly drew his firearm instead of his electric Taser weapon as he struggled to handcuff Grant, 22.
The judge has instructed the jury they could come back with a lesser verdict of involuntary manslaughter. Los Angeles is taking precautions, because of the rioting that followed the Rodney King verdict (see video below) in which white police officers were accused of using excessive force to restrain King, a black male. King was awarded $3.8 million dollars in punitive damages; his lawyers received $2.4 million.
Black civil rights advocates often use show trials like King’s and Grant’s as a backdrop to make a point about racism in America and the unequal treatment of blacks arrested by white police officers. On the face of it statistics tend to support this as 47% of state prison inmates are black even though Blacks constitute only 12% of the population. 43% of black children live in poverty and the leading cause of death for under 30 black males is gun shot. 610,000 black men between the ages of 20 and 29 – 23% of the total – were in jail or under supervision, compared with 436,000 enrolled in higher education. (1989 study from the U. S. Dept. of Justice) The statistics paint a bad picture absent any other casual factors being introduced. Sociologists have offered a number of causal factors, not the least of which is black attitudes towards whites and customs associated with the black culture that places a low value on education in order to be employable. .
During the infamous Watts Riot of 1965, thirty-four people were killed, 1032 injured and 40 million dollars in property was destroyed by looting and arson. Among the dead were a fireman, a deputy sheriff and a Long Beach police officer. The National Guard was called and put a cordon around a vast region of South-Central Los Angeles. The Watts riot started over the arrest of a drunk driver. Marquette Frye failed to pass a sobriety test and was arrested. As the police ordered an impound for his motorcycle, a crowd of hostile blacks began to form. Dozens grew to hundreds who began throwing rocks at the police. This riot triggered rioting around the US that summer and into 1966.