Justice Department: Take Action Against the Officers Involved in Oscar Grant’s Death

More than two-and-a-half years have passed since Oscar Grant was fatally shot by a police officer as he lay face down on a train platform in Oakland, California.

Now his family and friends are bracing for the release of his killer from jail.

As soon as June 13, ex-Bay Area Rapid Transit cop Johannes Mehserle may be released from the Men’s Central Jail in Los Angeles. That’s less than a year after he entered the facility in July following a conviction of involuntary manslaughter for killing the 22-year-old Grant early on New Year’s Day 2009 while detaining him and his friends for allegedly fighting on a train.

Why so little time for taking a life?

Mehserle received credit for time served before his conviction and “good time” credits while imprisoned - a day for each one he was jailed. These credits slashed his two-year sentence to less than half that time.

For Grant supporters, the short amount of time Mehserle has spent behind bars constitutes a miscarriage of justice.

Grant’s family and friends were already outraged that Mehserle was only convicted of involuntary manslaughter for killing the young African-American father instead of voluntary manslaughter or murder. Mehserle maintains that he fatally shot Grant on accident after mistakenly reaching for his pistol when he meant to reach for his stun gun.

The Grant advocates who never accepted Mehserle’s defense have said that the conviction Mehserle received signals that the life of a young black man means little in the criminal justice system and that police officers can consistently evade being held responsible for their actions.

Now, their main means for obtaining justice for Oscar Grant is to press the U.S. Justice Department into charging Mehserle and other BART officers on the scene when Grant died with violating his civil rights. Although the Justice Department has reportedly been investigating the matter since last year, no official has commented publicly on the findings of the investigation or announced any charges against the BART officers in question.

With Mehserle’s release imminent, it’s time for the Justice Department to take action.

It’s been widely reported that the BART officers at the scene when Grant was killed were poorly trained and hurled racial slurs at Grant and his friends, fueling chaos and tension that ultimately led to Grant’s death. Help his family and friends get justice by asking U.S. Justice Department officials to hold Mehserle and his colleagues accountable.

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