GUILTY: BART OFFICER CONVICTED OF INVOLUNTARY MANSLAUGHTER IN KILLING OF OSCAR GRANT

From what we are told a police officer has never been indicted for killing a “suspect” in California (we so need to check that), but what we can say is that we don’t think any police officer has ever been convicted, no matter how obvious he or she should be. We did not have high hopes for the Oscar Grant case. Despite the videos of Former Officer Johannes Mehserle kiling the 22-year-old black father of a then 4-year-old girl, despite the outrage that led to a massive…let’s say “show of force”…in the community, despite the fact that Jerry Brown the former Mayor of Oakland now running for Governor of California, and even despite the fact that Mehserle gave the piss-poor excuse of he grabbed the worng gun (he said he thought it was his taser), we did not think any of that would have bearing. Now the verdict is in: guilty of involuntary manslaughter. We wanted to see what the right wingers had to say about this, because we just knew that they were none too pleased, but even most of the right-wingers over this thread over at Free Republic are saying this cop had to go to jail! Now if it gets to that point, its a good sign that some folks might have had enough, and it might be time for police officers to stop thinking they can do whatever and start coming to the table with the communities they police so we can end all the stupid drama. We can dream. AllHipHop.com gives us the story.

AllHipHop.com

A former BART officer was found guilty of manslaughter in the slaying of Oscar Grant on January 1, 2009.

Prosecutors said that officer Johannes Mehserle, 28, deliberately shot his gun into Oscar J. Grant III’s back as he attempted to handcuff him on New Year’s Day 2009. Mehserle testified in court that he thought he was unleashing his taser, not a gun.

The killing was video taped by several witnesses in Oakland. Mehserle, a White man, shot a round into the back of Grant, a Black man, who was face down on a train station platform. Police were working 12-hour shifts in preparation for riots and crowd control.

Mehserle resigned from the transit force a week after the shooting.

Alameda County Deputy Dist. Atty. David R. told jurors that Mehserle’s holster was designed to avert discharge of the handgun, reports the L.A. Times. “He let his aggression dictate his conduct,” Stein told jurors. Lawyers for Mehserle charged the gun and the taser had similar weight.

A friend of Oscar Grant testified that he heard Mehserle proclaim that he was going to use the taser to in the infraction that occurred with 22-year-old Grant and three other men. Grant was unarmed.

Others testified that Mehserle expressed immediate grief and despair after the killing of Grant.

Detractors of the police system and the case continue to express discontent with the verdict, considering it too light for Mehserle.

“He’s sick to his stomach, because he has shot a man who did not deserve to be shot,” a defense attorney told the jury. A group of protesters expressed a unified discord after the verdict was announced.

Several members of Oscar Grant’s family and friends have filed multimillion-dollar lawsuits against the BART transit agency.

Johannes Mehserle faces two to four years in jail for involuntary manslaughter.