Youth Radio - Topic: Police Brutality

UC Berkeley Math Professors Hold Teach-Outs To Bring Awarness On Police Brutality

rgee — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 12:01:34 -0600

Denise Tejada, Turnstyle News

UC Berkeley made international headlines after a video surfaced showing campus police pushing and beating students with batons. One professor, Math professor Nathan Ilten, saw those videos and was inspired to help bring awareness to the issue of police brutality on campus. He reached out to other fellow mathematicians to help put together a "teach-out" on UC Berkeley's campus.

Turnstyle filmed one of the six teach-outs at Berkeley, Professor Andrew Critch's “The Mathematics of Altruism and Civic Involvement.” The class included a review of the simple order-of-magnitude calculations and how they often show that altruistic behaviors -- like voting and civic engagement -- can have a huge expected impact on social issues.

Math Proffessors Hold Teach-Outs at UC Berkeley Campus from Turnstyle Video on Vimeo.

[VIDEO] Oakland Reacts to Mehserle Sentence; Protests Lead To Arrests

denise — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 01:34:14 -0500

OAKLAND: After the peaceful rally in Frank Ogawa Plaza, a march headed to the Fruitvale BART station and was interrupted on International Boulevard as police block off the streets. It got ugly as police and protesters began a game of cat and mouse in East Oakland, where police finally surround protesters on 6th Avenue and E 17th Street. Police corralled protestors and ultimately arrested 152 people.

Report Concludes BART Police Messed Up

lsykes — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 15:10:57 -0500

The firm hired to investigate BART police's handling of the January 1st, 2009 Oscar Grant shooting released a report August 11th revealing the many mistakes the police made. In the nine page report, the firm—Meyers Nave—states that BART police are trained in “tactical concepts” such as staying together and working as a team. This means that officers should control situations by having one officer search the supposed suspects, while the other officers collectively calm the crowd down. Instead, at the Fruitvale station on January 1, 2009, the officers were dispersed and far away from one another, thus unable to keep everyone under control. No thorough search was performed.

The report breaks down the police conduct the night of the shooting and already media outlets are calling the report, 'scathing'. To me, it looks like every part of the police training was pretty much ignored that night. With former BART police officer Johannes Mesherle now standing trial for the death of Oscar Grant, one has to wonder what this report may mean for his case. Not jumping the gun or anything -- but with so much having gone wrong that is now documented in this report, the outcome for Mesherle doesn’t look too positive.

Previously:

Johannes Mesherle Faces Murder Charges

lsykes — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 17:32:58 -0500

The preliminary hearing for former BART police Johannes Mesherle concluded today. Over the seven days of the hearing, the defense and prosecution heard from numerous witnesses including BART police Anthony Pirone. According to The Oakland Tribune, yesterday Pirone admitted that Grant posed no threat while he was handcuffed and lying on his stomach before he was shot. Pirone himself has come under fire from the community for not being charged with assault after it was brought to light that he struck Grant earlier in the incident.

Now here to stand trial is 27-year-old Johannes Mesherle, a former BART police officer accused of shooting and killing 22-year-old Oscar Grant this past New Year's. In videos that have surfaced on the internet since that tragic night, audiences with a computer or with television access can see a glimpse of what happened. With a handcuffed Grant lying on his stomach, hands behind his back, Mesherle (who claims he was going for his taser gun) pulls out his service gun and shoots Grant.

Judge C. Don Clay’s decision to push ahead with a murder trial brings up a variety of feelings. Some conservatives feel that Mesherle made a mistake, but shouldn't be punished harshly for it. On the other hand, many community members have grown up witnessing police abuse of power. They have seen their loved ones hurt or have themselves been harrassed by people in power. The officers charged with murdering Sean Bell, Amadou Diallo, and the vicious beating of Rodney King were all found not guilty. We don’t want the outcome to be the same. When explaining his decision, Judge Daly said he felt Mesherle intended to shoot Grant, a message many people want the jury to decide and rule on in the coming months.

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We've been following this story since the begining, click here for a complete list of posts from Youth Radio about the Oscar Grant case.

You might also be interested in this interview of witness Karina Vargas, whose video footage was shown during the hearing:

Justice Needs to Come

lsykes — Thu, 28 May 2009 17:54:50 -0500

The preliminary hearing for former BART police officer Johannes Mesherle has been going on for almost two weeks now. Through these past weeks, the testimonies of BART police officers, witnesses for the prosecution and for the defense have all been heard. To this day, five months later, I still don’t know how to gauge my feelings about this case. I feel angry as an African-American male knowing the system would throw the book at me if I were to shoot a man (whether accident or not), but also sorrow for our system in failing the people that it’s supposed to protect.

To me, the testimony of the officers who’ve come to the witness stand regarding the events of January 1^st, 2009 seems very much exaggerated. It's almost as if I’m watching a crime drama television series that includes huge cover-ups. The police say they were fearing for their lives and that the atmosphere was “almost a near-riot environment”. Yet, when we watch the videos that have surfaced on the web, you see the police standing nonchalantly. Those body mannerisms make me think that things might not have been as bad as they are letting on.

During this ongoing preliminary hearing, BART police Anthony Pirone testified that Oscar Grant had to be physically removed from the train. This is something I can believe...the relationship that I have with police myself isn't the best. A lot of the officers I've come in contact with are bullies, abusing their power over the common folks. If we react towards them in the same way we would to the average person on the street, we may see some prison time. Frustration can ensue easily. Grant supposedly began cursing at the police, but why should that matter? The police are trained to deal with hectic environments; things can be taken care of calmly.

Hopefully this hearing leads to the trial for Mr. Mesherle. I'm still on the fence about whether he should get tried for murder or manslaughter. A conviction will only help us realize abusing our power can only go so far.

Did Officer Affair Have Role In Death Of Oscar Grant?

denise — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 14:52:01 -0500

Attorney John Burris-- who represents the family of Oscar Grant- has filed a claim with the Alameda County Superior Court which states that the events that led to the shooting of Grant were the results of an “unprofessional relationship."

The San Francisco Chronicle reports Burris argues that a male officer's rush to assist a female officer contributed to the tensions on the platform at Fruitvale station that fateful night. This is part of the wrongful-lawsuit that Burris has field in behalf of Grant’s family for the amount of $50 million dollars.[via SFGATE]

Officer Caught Beating A 15-year-old girl

denise — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 12:09:18 -0600

Unfortunately the case of Oscar Grant, the 22-year-old man who was shot and killed by former Bay Area Rapid Transit Johannes Mehserle was not enough to stop cops from brutalizing teens. In this video you’ll see eight year veteran Paul Schene beat up a 15 year-old girl in a holding cell after kicking her shoe at the officers. Surveillance cameras captured the assault

The kicking of the shoe and the words used by the victim to insult the officers is not enough to justify their actions. Let’s be honest, police brutality is older than I am. It seems that cops are forgetting that they are living in an era dominated by technology and that their actions are constantly being watched. This assault makes me wonder how many videos are out there of police brutality and how many of those videos take place in a holding cell.

An Eye For Truth

noah — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 17:59:02 -0600

19 year-old Karina Vargas welcomed the New Year watching fireworks with friends in San Francisco, but little did she know that later that night she would play a key role in the murder investigation of 22-year-old Oscar Grant. The video she captured of then Bay Area Rapid Transit officer Johannes Mehserle shooting Grant, along with other witness videos, became a catalyst for multiple protests and the eventual arrest of Mehserle.

Like any other teenager with a camera, Vargas setout to document a fun night out with her friends, but her most memorable footage came on the BART platform that night. Vargas told Youth Radio, “No matter how much time passes, I'm never going to forget it. 2009, that New Years, I'll never forget what I had to witness.” She heard yelling through the open doors of her train car and stepped off to witness police officers pulling young men from the BART. Drawing her brand new Christmas gift up to her eye, she captured two videos of the police action, and says she was standing within just 15 feet of Grant when he was shot in the back while lying facedown on the ground.

Karina Vargas regularly confides in her mother about her experiences that night, "I'll say mom it's just not fair, it's just not fair that I had to see that and it's not fair for him." It was Vargas’ mother who recommended she give the video to local TV news channels, and through only a few interviews with those channels, she has become a reluctant public figure. She’s been stopped in the grocery store and at Starbucks. Some people praise her heroism and others criticize her for seeking publicity.

Vagas says she hasn’t left her house, since New Year’s Day, without bringing her camera with her, and she hopes her documentation will inspire others. "Hopefully with what I've done, maybe some people will try to do good, try to do better and get the truth out." With more people, especially youth, carrying smart phones with high quality cameras, citizens undoubtedly have more surveillance power than ever before, tipping the balance of power in favor of the masses.

Oscar Grant's Close Friend Speaks Out

denise — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 15:37:13 -0600

Youth Radio talks to one of Oscar Grant's in laws who gives us in insight about what happened the day Oscar Grant was killed by former BART official and how the family is dealing with it.

Oscar Grant's Cousin Witnesses Fatal Shooting

Devonte Swag — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 20:15:57 -0600

Youth Radio talks to Oscar Grant's cousin who witnessed former BART officer Johannes Mehserle shot and kill her love one after celebrating the New Year.