We all remember the tragic story of Oscar Grant III. The 22-year old black man who was pulled off a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) train during New Year's Day in 2009 at Fruitvale Station. Grant and other black men were stopped and searched by BART police officers who responded to reports of a public transportation fight. The latter resulted in an altercation which brought officers to pin Grant to the ground and struck him multiple times. Shortly afterward, officer Johannes Mehserle shot Grant in the back and immediately killed him. Though Mehserle claimed the shooting was accidental, a jury convicted him of involuntary manslaughter and he stayed behind bars for seven months.
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It's now been 10 years since we lost Oscar Grant and new reports are indicating the police officers involved lied about several, important details of the shooting. Precisely, a 144-page report brought forth by Meyers Nave Law Firm, the legal body responsible for the internal investigation of BART police officers in the shooting, reveal serious inconsistencies in the stories.
For instance, police officer Anthony Pirone, previously fired for attempting to conceal details surrounding Grant's murder, claimed to have been "fighting for his life" hence the use of such actions. That is despite camera evidence showing the opposite and Pirone previously being coined as a "crazy cop," by many witnesses. Additionally, Grant suffered from hemorrhage during the ordeal which resulted from blunt trauma to the head--a fact both Pirone and related authorities failed to report. And greater details can be found on the report, including the fact that the involved officers escalated rather than de-escalated the matter.
RIP Oscar Grant.
