BART officers protect the Blue Wall, insult justice, at Mehserle hearing
Written by Michael Vass
The hearing for ex-officer Mehserle continued today with more of the expected. Police officers are holding up the Blue Wall, and the major news media is backing them up to an extent. Justice continues to look far away.
In the latest insult, officer Marysol Domenici under cross-examination by Deputy District Attorney David Stein, described a scene of
However, surveillance video of the platform shows only 2-3 people coming off train as Dominici runs to assist her partner.”
And that’s just from the single video being used by the DA. There are several other videos of that night that further confirm that at most 3 people were off the train, and each of them had a cellphone videotaping the event. Something the police did not like and tried to prevent.
But the pile of manure only grew larger as officers on the scene heaped more lies onto the situation with exaggerations of the chaos and rioting the night Oscar Grant was killed. Yet the video used by the DA starkly contrasts with such a description. There is no subjective maybe this or that, it’s blatant.
But the officers are holding their ground in the face of contradicting visual evidence. Just like every person of color in America expected and feared.
The thing that really annoys me is the fact that the DA and the San Franscico Chronicle (the only major news media I am aware of that is reporting on this) continue to insist that only one video of the event exists. They continue to be oblivious to the multiple copies and separate angles from video taken by witnesses at the BART station that night, which is readily available on Youtube since the day after Oscar Grant was shot. I was able to find 3 separate additional videos in 7 seconds back in January, but the DA and the news media seem incapable of doing a Youtube search.
This is important because the surveillance video they are using
“The surveillance video doesn’t show the area where Grant was shot, only the train and nearby platform.”
But I have seen Grant being shot. Clearly. Thus the lie of Mehserle seems to be getting set-up by the media and DA. They are giving every indication that they are willing to accept his claim that he was reaching for his stun gun (located nowhere near his service weapon) and accidentally shot Grant. Though there is visual evidence to the contrary.
This means that a jury, going on the evidence that is supplied by the DA has every opportunity to absolve Mehserle of his guilt, and let him walk. It is a travesty of justice on a scale I just can’t explain.
Why is this happening? Because a White cop killed another unarmed, non-resisting, defenseless young Black father. It’s no different than the shooting of Robbie Tolan, the murder of Adolph Grimes or
I wish I could do more than write my outrage here. I wish that I could reach the nation like the cable news networks. But that will come in time, maybe. Until then we must all focus on what we can do.
I continue to follow this case. I hope you will too.
