Riot in Oakland After White Cop Gets Off Light for Killing Unarmed Black Man

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The city of Oakland exploded in racially diverse riots after a white police officer got off with a light sentence for shooting and killing a black man in the back as he lay facedown in handcuffs on a subway platform on New Year’s Day 2008.

The throngs of protesters thundered with disapproval by smashing windows and setting fires in downtown Oakland Thursday evening, resulting in more than 80 arrests. They were irate that former police officer Johannes Mehersle was convicted of involuntary manslaughter instead of the more severe second-degree murder. Mehersle received a prison sentence of two to four years, grossly insufficient to the mad mobs that flooded the streets.

Further sparking citizens’ rage was the fact that the trial was moved from Oakland to Los Angeles because the judge did not believe the white officer would receive a fair trial in the Bay Area. Moreover, the jury consisted of eight women and four men in Los Angeles, none of whom listed their race as black, despite being in a city that is 11.2 percent black, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.


“Oakland is our amusement park tonight!” was tagged on one building.

“This city is not the wild, wild West,” police chief Anthony Batts told the Oakland Tribune. “This city will not tolerate this sort of activity.”


The San Francisco Chronicle detailed a much more peaceful demonstration by city leaders in the immediate aftermath of the controversial verdict that somehow degenerated into downtown businesses being vandalized and fires being set in dumpsters.

“I’m angry as hell, but he was found guilty of something,” Tony Coleman, a community organizer who started a movement on Grant’s behalf, said of the convicted ex-cop.


The family of the shooting victim said the system spit in their emotional wounds. –terry shropshire

Photo courtesy of The Associated Press

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