Vigil Held For Oscar Grant In Oakland 4 Years After BART Shooting
OAKLAND (KCBS)— A vigil was held in Oakland on Tuesday, four years to the day that Oscar Grant was shot and killed by a Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer at the Fruitvale Station. His mother is angry that her son's killer was not convicted of murder and asked that criminal charges be brought against the officers involved in his death.
"I was four when he died," said Grant's daughter Tatiana, who read from a poem that she wrote for her father addressing the crowd, gathered at the vigil.
Her grandmother Wanda Johnson said it's unfair that Johannes Mehserle, the BART officer who was caught on video shooting Grant, was "only" found guilty of involuntary manslaughter.
"I'm hoping for that day that we will have the same rights as other people. Clearly you can see from my son being murdered that we didn't receive the same justice that other people would receive. The officer was only given like six months. He didn't even go to state prison," Johnson said.
Oscar Grant Vigil Held Four Years After He Was Shot and Killed By BART Officer
Her attorney John Burris said the cases she and Tatiana have filed against BART have been settled, but that another case against the officer remains.
"The whole issue around Mehserle about the use of the weapon and how it was used; those questions are still alive and will get litigated at some point depending on what the 9th Circuit does," Burris said.
Burris wants a federal murder charge filed against Mehserle, but so far the federal justice department has made no decision.
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