Zero. That’s the number of black jurors selected in the high-profile racial powder keg that is the trial of a white Oakland, Calif., transit cop accused of murdering an unarmed black man.
Johannes Mehserle shot and killed Oscar Grant on New Year’s Day 2009 in an altercation that was captured on video by several bystanders. His excuse is that he mistakenly pulled his gun rather than a Taser in an attempt to subdue Grant. He pleaded not guilty in Alameda County, Calif.
Prosecutors accuse Mehserle of murder, saying he knew that it was his gun he pulled rather than his Taser, and that he had every intention of shooting Grant because Mehserle believed officers were losing control of the situation.
Observers say this could be the most racially polarizing trial since the infamous Rodney King debacle in 1992 where four white LAPD officers were acquitted despite being videotaped savagely beating the unarmed man. This is why the case was moved hundreds of miles from Oakland to Los Angeles because the judge believed the officer would not receive a fair trial.
But the most perplexing portion of the whole affair is the conspicuous absence of any African American jurors in a city of more than three million and home to one of the most prosperous collection of blacks in the nation. This is a city filled with black athletes, celebrities, actors and actresses and several very prosperous enclaves of half-million dollar homes of mostly black businessmen and women. But not one selected to sit on this jury.
Jack Bryson, who attended Tuesday’s proceedings and whose sons — Jackie and Nigel — were with Grant when he was killed, left the courtroom in disgust just after the jury was selected.
“This is like a slap in the face,” Bryson told the Associated Press. “This case came all the way to Los Angeles after the judge in Alameda County said they couldn’t get a fair and impartial jury there.
“This is the best you can do, and you did this in two days. We could’ve stayed back in Oakland for this.”
Cephus “Bobby” Johnson, Grant’s uncle, also told the AP he was “extremely surprised” that given L.A. County’s black population that not one African American was selected from the jury pool. –terry shropshire
