Oscar Grant Trial Continues

Johannes Mehserle's Trial Continues With Jury Deliberations After Delays
07-04-10
Johannes Mehserle is currently on trial for the shooting death of Oscar Grant on New Year's Day in 2009 and now the trial has concluded and the jury is deliberating. Mehserle cried in court when he testified that he thought he was drawing his taser and not his gun when he shot Grant on the train platform at Fruitvale Station in Oakland.
"I remember the pop that wasn't very loud. It wasn't like a gunshot. I remember wondering what went wrong with the Taser. I thought it malfunctioned," he said. -Johannes Mehserle

I have held a gun before, as well as a tazer. The two items feel unmistakingly different. It's worrisome for an officer of the law, one who is entrusted by whatever official agency to carry a lethal weapon on his person in the public, to not be able to tell the very distinct differences between the two. One is made of metal, the other plastic, one is much heavier than the other, and officer's usually don't holster the two side by side, usually putting the tazer lower down the thigh or on the opposite side of the hip, meaning that when he actually drew his weapon he wouldn’t have to draw it from the same place. A larger question that needs to be asked is why do transit authority police officers even carry lethal firearms when non-lethal self-defense technology has progressed as far as it has? Furthermore why is any police officer on a normal beat have a gun on their person? Instead of having firearms in their patrol cars, or having Swat officers on the ready in case an emergency presented itself in which lethal force was absolutely necessary? Too many innocent people die every year because of human error. Getting back to the original point, there are to many things wrong with the Johannes Mehserle's story for it to be accurate. No matter what his story the facts of the matter are that he shot an innocent man in the back while he was lying on the ground. Whatever facts are taken into views that were not publicly mentioned he should at the very least get manslaughter. Some in the city of Oakland (Myself included) believe he should even get a heavier sentence than that. If justice is not freely given to this city, no one knows exactly what the repercussions would be. And while one always hopes to avoid violence and destruction at all cost, there is no better way to highlight oppression, social unease, poverty all coming into play within one city's limits than a riot.
-Adam Weatherall - Taylor