GO TO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nrqf_7nki8Y&feature=player_profilepage
- Supporters of justice for Oscar Grant rallied outside the courthouse during the sentencing hearing for his murderer, former BART police officer Johannes Mehserle. – Photo: Youth Radio
By Nishat Kurwa, Youth Radio, posted by San Francisco Bay View newspaper
This summer, Johannes Mesherle was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter. The case was moved to Los Angeles after large street demonstrations and riots followed the shooting. After more than a year and a half of legal wrangling and community unrest, Judge Robert Perry has just issued a sentence in the case of Mehserle, the former BART police officer found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in July for the Jan. 1, 2009, shooting of Oscar Grant in Oakland.
Johannes Mehserle was sentenced to two years in prison, a fraction of the maximum sentence he could have received. Judge Perry gave double credit for his time served, bringing the total to 292 days of credit. Mehserle could have faced between four and 14 years for the charge, but legal analysts widely speculated the sentence would be on the shorter end of that spectrum. Involuntary manslaughter charge carries a maximum of four years in prison, but a gun enhancement could have added an additional 10 years.
Analysts seized on the disparity between the sentence and the enhancement, arguing that involuntary manslaughter suggests an accidental killing but that the gun enhancement suggests intentional use of a deadly weapon. That discord meant that Judge Perry could draw a wide range of interpretations based on the jury’s findings.
The incident led to multiple violent protests in downtown Oakland and stirred up racial tensions and the city’s long history of unease between the police and the community. Mehersle, a white man, was videotaped from multiple angles, shooting Grant, an unarmed Black man, on the Fruitvale BART platform.
Protests are scheduled in Oakland today. City offices are closing early and many businesses are shutting down early in advance of demonstrations. Unlike the July verdict when members of the community and media widely anticipated violent outbreaks, no one is quite sure what the community’s response might be today. Some businesses had boarded up their windows in advance of today’s sentencing but only a fraction of those that shuttered this summer for the verdict.
The final chapter in the case has yet to be written. It’s widely expected Mehserle’s attorney will appeal the verdict.
Nishat Kurwa, as news director for Youth Radio [10], where this story [11] first appeared, leads a team of adult and youth staff producing across Youth Radio’s broadcast and online outlets. Before coming to Youth Radio, she was the producer of KMEL’s public affairs show, Street Knowledge with Davey D, and is currently also a news producer at KCBS Radio in San Francisco. In 2002, she was the co-creator and executive producer of KPFA’s Islam Today, the first program by and about Muslims on U.S. public radio. In 2004, Kurwa was named a Salzburg Seminar Fellow. Contact Youth Radio at 1701 Broadway Ave., Oakland, CA 94612, (510) 251-1101, youthradio@youthradio.org [12].
youthradio [13] | Nov. 5, 2010
After the peaceful rally in Frank Ogawa Plaza, a march headed to the Fruitvale BART station gets interrupted on International Boulevard as police block off the streets. Police and protesters then began a game of cat and mouse in East Oakland where police finally surround protesters on Sixth Avenue and East 17th Street. An estimated 150 protesters were then arrested.
