Living as a white female in the safety of Melbourne, Australia, and being blessed with education, health, safety and wealth and endless things beyond that, I sometimes loose grasp of knowing how it would feel to be someone else in a different place and under different circumstances, of placing myself in somebody else's shoes, somebody who is not as fortunate as I am, and this happens too often. It is during moments like viewing the film Fruitvale Station in which I am slapped in the face, so to speak, with reality, and after something like this I am left utterly shaken. Firstly, I cannot believe that an easily irritated and infuriated person like me who believes in the righteousness of justice for all individuals did not hear about Oscar Grant's shooting. Had I have heard about it, though, I suppose there would have not been much that I could do to assist his family in bringing their deceased son the justice he deserved but never received, however I am, despite how late I am of knowing of his passing, rather appreciative of the film to have exposed me to this severe injustice, for it is every day that I learn more about the inhumanity which exists in some humans, and it is every day that I better myself beyond these inhumane people.
Just like Oscar Grant, I too am currently twenty-two years of age. I have not yet lived my life to its fullest potential, in contrast to Oscar having been through alleged jail sentences and having his beautiful daughter, Tatiana. I understand that his lifestyle would have differed from mine in every way imaginable, but that does not make me any better of a person than he was. Our circumstances do not determine who we are, it is how we face them that does so, and according to some of his family members' statements, he attempted and fulfilled bettering himself for the benefits of his girlfriend and daughter. And just when he tried to tackle his circumstances, a thorny hand of fate on New Year's Day in 2009 had swung from the earth and into Johannes Mehserle's gun and took Oscar's life via his lung before he had the chance to defend it. Claiming that he mistook his gun for his taser, I strongly never will stop believing that Mehserle did not require the need to taser Oscar. The video evidence of this occurrence shows that Oscar was indeed complying with the police, even moments before he was shot, when his head was being compressed into the floor by the other officer's knee. In the event of having my head crushed by an authoritative figure who quite possibly felt the need to be racially unjust, I too would be squirming, but squirming much more than Oscar was before his death, and squirming justly too, seeing as my skull would feel as though it will impede on my brain. This squirming would not have harmed anybody though, thus it would not have needed to be dealt with by a taser, let alone a gun. Besides, Oscar was unarmed. Honestly, what harm could a handcuffed young man do to a trio of police officers whilst his face is lodged between one of the officer's knees and the floor?
Utter disgust is the only feeling pulsating through me as I type. This reminds me of Israel Hernández-Llach's murder back in August on the 6th, this year. Israel was tasered near the chest area and had a seizure, later falling into cardiac arrest. I am supposing that if Mehserle had tasered Oscar instead of shooting him, Oscar might have been brutally tasered, thus dying from a cardiac arrest later too. Either way, Oscar was treated with brutality, most likely for his ethnicity. Fruitvale Station implies racial prejudice, as towards the end when the officer was searching the train for the perpetrators, he was searching only for African American males, rather than the white male who had actually initiated the fight which Oscar and his friends were accused of initiating. Without the event of racial prejudice, the police would have asked the hundreds of surrounding witnesses for accounts of what had happened, seeped through the crowd to find the white male, and arrested both him and Oscar seeing as they were allegedly fighting, thus dealing with the two down at the police station later, rather than putting a violent display on for all those in that train on that fateful New Years Day.
I suppose one possibility was that in light of Oscar's slight struggle whilst on the floor, Mehserle, being experienced in police enforcement for under three years, might have been startled and unfortunately indeed did mistake his gun for his taser. However, in all particularity, how could he have done this when he would have been familiarised with the location of either of these weapons on his own belt? The occurrence was not a terrorist attack or anything major as such, so would not he have noticed that his gun was on his right side and his taser possibly on his left? This is the common placement of those weapons on a police officer's belt. It is alleged that Mehserle preferred to wear his taser on the left side too, as seventeen days prior to Oscar's death, Mehserle had pulled the taser from the left onto two armed-robbery suspects. Also, in the footage of him pulling out the gun, he unclips the holster off his belt, whereas the taser is not clipped to a belt the same was that a gun is - it is either clipped on with a one or two-point holster, not generally stopping it from being stolen the way a gun would be, and not also strapped the same way as a gun - would not have that indicated that he was holding a gun? Also, there is a weight difference between a gun and a taser - a taser, in particular the x26 taser which is preferred by most BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit, the transit in which Oscar was killed) officers due to the great package price, which would have been similar to that used by Mehserle, weighs approximately two-hundred and four grams, whereas a standard police gun would weigh around six-hundred and twenty grams without a mag inserted. Would the weight of the gun not have indicated that he was not carrying a taser? One would notice, especially after thorough police training, the difference in the weight of the two, seeing as there is a significant difference, in the same was a preschooler would notice the weight of a crayon compared to that of a pencil.
The BART officers I assume would have had a gun similar to the Smith & Wesson M&P Compact .40 and a taser similar to the x26, which I am basing both the weight and holster structure on to attempt to make an understanding as to how Mehserle had apparently 'mistook' his gun for his taser. Generally speaking, these two weapons are shaped differently, weigh differently and are placed differently and specifically, thus I am claiming that Mehserle's defence is false, and he deserves more than his two year jail sentence. I am shocked too at how he managed to be released from jail after only eleven months of his sentence, seeing as he was charged with second-degree murder.
A second-degree murder in the state of California leaves the perpetrator charged with at least fifteen years of jail time. How is it that Mehserle had received any less? Well, the judge had offered the jury three conviction options: either second-degree murder, which is fifteen years to life in prison, voluntary manslaughter which would land him three to eleven years in jail, or involuntary manslaughter, which would land him two to four years. The jury had come to the conclusion that Mehserle deserved to be charged with involuntary manslaughter. As involuntary as it had allegedly appeared though, I believe that Mehserle should have served over fifteen years in jail seeing as it was a clumsy mistake, thus a murder. A son, a nephew, a friend, a father and a boyfriend was taken away all by one avoidable mistake, and after Mehserle's first jail sentence being relieved by a bail of three million dollars being paid off by the police, all of this becomes more of a reason to make me angry. Imagine if Mehserle was an African-American, and Oscar a caucasian - would not the trial go quite differently? Indeed it would, because most members of our society unfortunately operate in favour of racial prejudice, and this case definitely depicts this.
With total sympathy, empathy and disgust in my heart, I hope that instead of Oscar's family obtaining more money than almost three million dollars from BART, that justice is served on behalf of Oscar and Mehserle is sent to jail for a longer sentence. I believe that his argument of mistaken action is seen as justified because of his lack of experience in the police force, but overall he did take an innocent man's life and was excused, per se, from his sentence because of the fact that he is an authoritative figure.
Rest in peace, Oscar Grant, and I hope that you will certainly receive the justice you deserve someday soon, so that no other person will have to endure this sort of undeserved police brutality, especially on a celebratory day.
References:
Oscar Grant's shooting Wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BART_Police_shooting_of_Oscar_Grant
Murder punishment in California:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_punishments_for_murder_in_the_United_States#California
Possible similar gun to that of Mehserle's:
http://www.smith-wesson.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product4_750001_750051_765698_-1_757955_757781_757781_ProductDisplayErrorView_Y
Possible similar taser and holster to that of Mehserle's:
http://www.taser.com/products/law-enforcement/taser-x26-ecd
BART taser budget, compared to a document from Henry County which quotes the same prices of deals for tasers which led me to relate the taser used by BART officers to the x26:
BART taser budget:
http://www.bart.gov/news/articles/2011/news20110526
Henry County price quote for tasers:
http://henryga.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?meta_id=4013&view=&showpdf=1
Mehserle's taser and gun holster information:
http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Position-of-Mehserle-s-Taser-holster-may-be-key-3200231.php
http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Position-of-Mehserle-s-Taser-holster-may-be-key-3200231.php
Israel Hernández death information:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/27/israel-hernandez-lawsuit_n_3823813.html
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