You could kinda see it coming during the months of posturing in the media and studies and whatever…

Today a judge ordered that the murder trial of former BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle, accused of killing Oscar Grant, to be moved out of Oakland.

How am I supposed to take this other than the justice system acting to save the life and liberty of one of their own?

Like a foggy mist coming off of the ocean the spectre of Simi Valley looms across the bay area. The Rodney King Trial was moved to lily white Simi Valley and look what happened. LA and many other cities around the world erupted. This was in ‘92 before the viral revolution through the internet started.

The mini riots and protest in Oakland that were set off because of the Grant shooting—caught on tape and blasted virally around the world—were nowhere near LA in ‘92. But what if Mehserle gets off like those 4 LAPD did initially? Would the ghettos of the world have Oscar’s back? Would Oakland? What would having his back look like?
According the San Francisco Chronicle:

(Judge) Jacobson issued his ruling after a four-day hearing in Oakland that focused largely on a telephone survey of 397 county residents commissioned by the defense. It found that 98 percent of those polled had heard of the case.

Defense attorney Michael Rains asserted that Alameda County is racially polarized over the shooting, with black people in particular prejudging the white former officer guilty of murdering Grant, who was African American. He said all jurors would feel pressured to convict his client, fearing that an acquittal could prompt more destructive protests.

But more than 78 percent of the African Americans questioned – or 29 of 37 – said he was definitely or probably guilty, the defense survey said.

Prosecutors said they were alarmed by the suggestion that black jurors could not give Mehserle a fair trial, calling the argument inappropriate and unprecedented. They said the publicity around the shooting had been less sensational than in many other cases where a change-of-venue motion was denied.

Basically they’re saying ANY potential black juror from the area—- and getting a black juror on cases like this isn’t a guarantee in Alameda Co. anyway, trust me—would be biased, not capable of being fair.

The video—dozens were shot on the scene—is the key. Are black and white peoples eyes so different that they can look at that video and see totally different things?

Black eyes: a cold blooded murder, White eyes: an accidental shooting.

Either way Oakland was robbed of an opportunity to stare down one of it’s biggest problems—killer police—and administer justice for all of those before and after Oscar Grant, whether that would have meant finding Mehserle guilty or not, it should have been Oakland’s call to make.
—Kevin Weston