Are We Becoming Desensitized to Police Brutality?

If a white cop shot and killed an unarmed, black father, would anyone pay attention?

Oscar Grant is one good test case. In the early hours of New Year’s Day 2009 in Oakland, CA, a police officer fatally shot Grant while the youth lay prostrate on a train platform. Johannes Mehserle, the Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer charged with his murder, is one of the few cops in California's history to go on trial for killing someone while on duty.

This is a huge deal. Northern California news outlets are following the case closely, but in Los Angeles — where the trial was moved to guarantee Mehserle an impartial jury — media coverage has been scant. The same is true for other parts of the nation. But why is a case involving a white cop’s killing of an unarmed black man failing to draw national coverage?

Sean Bell. Amadou Diallo. Rodney King. We know these men’s names because they were police brutality victims. But Oscar Grant's case seems to have fallen off the public radar.

Some community activists I've spoken to suggest it’s because the public has grown accustomed to police brutality. Though seeing footage of police officers thrashing Rodney King nearly 20 years ago was a shock to the public, Americans aren't as likely to flinch when seeing police violence today.

“The public has been desensitized,” Los Angeles activist and author Earl Ofari Hutchinson recently told me in an interview. “It’s not a novel experience to see cops doing abusive acts. Cops have been put on trial for a number of offenses — from corruption to misconduct — since the Rodney King case.”

The public has heard so much about police brutality that according to Hutchinson, when he tries to explain to people the rare nature of the Oscar Grant murder trial, people just shrug. Then they tell him they thought that cops were charged with murder in the line of duty all the time.

Though his case hasn't triggered nearly as much outcry, in fact, Grant’s killing shares numerous similarities with King’s beating. Bystanders videotaped both incidents and the jury selected to hear the Grant case likewise contains no African-Americans.

With closing arguments in the case scheduled for July 1, a verdict could be reached any day now. If the jury convicts Mehserle — who says he accidentally killed Grant after pulling out his gun, when he meant to pull out his Taser — law enforcement nationwide could feel the aftershocks.

“If this cop is convicted, there should be a lot of questions in the heads of cops who are used to not being held accountable for their actions about what they can get away with,” says Aidge Patterson, an organizer with the L.A. Coalition for Justice for Oscar Grant.

Because several members of the jury admitted to having close ties with law enforcement, and because the judge in the case — Robert Perry — has a reputation for being lenient on cops involved in misconduct cases, an acquittal seems more likely than a conviction. Whatever the verdict, the public can honor Grant and other police brutality victims by raising awareness about their cases, teaming up with anti-police brutality coalitions and demanding justice by demonstrating, letter-writing and organizing until the authorities involved are held accountable.

In the face of senseless killings like Oscar Grant's, apathy simply isn’t an option.

Photo Credit: mcmees24