The Grandfather of Oscar Grant, the shooting victim of former Transit Officer Mehserle who was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter, pleaded for calm to a crowd in Oakland last night. He invoked reason and Martin Luther King in a TV interview with local news after he spoke to the crowd, probably doing as much to tone down the violence as the police did. Oscar Grant Sr. reasoned for peace with the crowd, rightly pointing out it does no good at all to destroy the place where we live and work. It took a lot of courage for him to speak like he did for the rest of Oakland and surrounding areas in spite of the tragic shooting of his Grandson. I have a Grandson. I can only imagine the pain he must feel in losing his.
Oscar Grant Sr.’s plea did not fall on deaf ears with the residents outraged in reality over the verdict, but of course after dark the looters and pillagers did what they were always going to do no matter what the verdict had been. They could have hanged Mehserle after the trial in the public square and it would have meant nothing to the roving bands of street thugs smashing windows and looting. The same cheap punks who lost no one rioted because that’s what they do, and they insulted the words of a man who actually did lose someone he loved.
Mayor Dellums called in police and CHP from surrounding areas to help in stopping the pillagers, but they made only fifty arrests because you can bet they were ordered to let everything but the most heinous felonies take place. Smashing into stores and destroying property was not to be interfered with in the rules of engagement. Although throwing what the media calls high intensity fireworks at police had to be endured rather than battled, the police held the lines although they were allowed to do little. The media’s laughingly daubed ‘powerful fireworks’ are in many cases almost small sticks of dynamite. A true leader would have issued a curfew through the weekend and arrested anyone with any means necessary that stepped out after dark. The real police, residents, and business owners of Oakland who are innocent victims of these thugs deserve no less. It’s going to be a long weekend because the pillagers still own the darkness.
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