oakland

i have been focused on school work for the past 15 or so days and therefore i haven’t watched or read any news. when i’ve watched video on t.v. or computer my whole goal has been to zone out rather than be informed. so i didn’t know anything about what is going on in oakland until i saw some photos on brad’s blog and then saw a tweet from mc hammer (yes i follow mc hammer on twitter – do you have a problem with that?). so i decided to see a little of what is happening in the world. i finally saw the video of the police shooting oscar grant and i can’t see anyway that this will be a justifiable shooting. what in the world was this guy thinking? i don’t know a lot about what is going on and has happened. i’ve had my nose stuck in books about a world that existed 2,600 years ago, which ironically bares a great deal of similarity with what is happening within our present day. still with my limited understanding of the events i can understand the desire of some to riot though i would add that they are probably not helping to correct the problem at all. their violent response is more than likely just making the problem worse. that type of violence, even in response to awful violence, merely continues the circle and encourages more brutality.

so in my ignorance i have two things to say:

  1. please, please, please may the system do what is right rather than just trying to defend itself.
  2. sometimes it is a great, big, stupid world.

of course, i will freely admit that i am speaking out of very limited knowledge at this moment.

7 Replies to “oakland”

  1. It looks as if the policeman just decided to shoot the guy, but there may be more to it. either way an independent investigation is justified and criminal charges should be filed.

    If it were my child killed I would want the persons involved tried and convicted, I wouldn’t destroy other people’s property.

    Stupid is as stupid does.

  2. i agree. i generally want to give police officers the benefit of the doubt. after all, they never know when they will be putting their lives on the line. 99% of time they don’t have to but there is still that 1%.

    still watching that video there will have to be an amazingly compelling reason to justify that action. unless he was going to blow up a bomb or release a weapon of mass destruction i can not imagine how it would be justifiable force to shoot an unarmed person in the back,

    as for the rioting i’ve heard it described as being so frustrating that you have to punch a wall. however this seems like you get so frustrated at someone who is wrong but powerful that you go into the house of someone who is innocent but weak and punch a hole in their wall and then leave it for them to pay for and fix.

  3. This is like the third time a BART cop has shot and killed an unarmed person for no good reason (and nothing was done about it) which is why people are so angry. This guy Grant cooperated and did everything he was supposed to and was still killed. A lot of people in Oakland have been shut out of the government and ignored by the city, unfortunately this is one of their few options to have their voices heard.

    A large part of what led up to the riot from what I saw was the way the police handled the protest, which was completely peaceful up until they cornered everyone and then sat and waited for someone to do something stupid. The riot cops wanted it to happen just as bad as some of the trouble makers who tagged along with the march. If they had kept it moving and opened up transit again I don’t think anything violent would have happened.

    I’m obviously upset that my neighborhood was trashed and definitely don’t agree with what they did, but it did work and now hopefully Grant’s family will get justice.

  4. “It” (the riot)didn’t work and had nothing to do with the family filing a 25 million dollar lawsuit, that is the way they get justice.

  5. I don’t condone what they did but the day after the riot the mayor and DA announced they were investigating the shooting as a homicide, BART had an emergency board of directors meeting where they agreed to community oversight on their police, and SF legislators started drafting laws to increase training requirements for officers and to increase oversight. The week before that all that did was circle the wagons around this officer. Just sayin’

  6. @dad – not sure a 25 million dollar lawsuit will bring them justice. not even entirely sure that punishing the one (or ones) who did it will bring them justice – though that should happen. i’m not in oakland and i know nothing about the other shoots but if they were without cause i would imagine fixing the problem and thereby making sure it doesn’t happen to another young man will probably come closer than anything to bringing justice.

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