CrimeWatch

OAKLAND (CBS 5 / AP / BCN) ― California's Attorney General on Saturday dispatched a state prosecutor to monitor Alameda County's investigation into the New Year's Day slaying of an unarmed man by a transit police officer that was recorded on videotape.

Jerry Brown said an unnamed attorney from his office would act as independent observer. Local prosecutors are trying to determine how and why the 22-year-old black man was fatally shot at Bay Area Rapid Transit's Fruitvale station in Oakland.

"There's an ancient saying that justice must not only be done but must also appear to be done," Brown said at a news conference. 

Brown made the announcement after meeting Saturday with state leaders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in his Oakland office. Alice Huffman, the president of the California branch of the NAACP, said she had sought the meeting with Brown because "the situation in Oakland is very volatile and very pressing."

She said she hoped that Brown's involvement "will quell some of the tension" in the black community, which she said has "a lot of suspicion" about the process.

Brown said he understood the black community was frustrated with the pace of the criminal investigation but he was hesitant to intervene in the inquiry.

Brown indicated that he had met with Alameda County District Attorney Tom Orloff and added, "I have confidence in him." Brown said he also promised Orloff that "I won't second guess and interfere."

Orloff said Saturday that he had talked with Brown about the monitoring and agreed with the idea. "I think it's a good idea, the more people that look at this the better," he said.

Brown said Orloff must take time to review the case very carefully because "defendants have rights," but at the same time he noted "justice can't grind so slowly that it appears that justice isn't being served."

The attorney general indicated there was no reason for him to conduct a separate investigation at this point, but he added: "If something goes wrong people will come back to me anyway so I might as well be there from day one." 

Brown also emphasized that, "There's no evidence that anything has been done wrong in the investigation so far" and said he sees his office's role as "assuring the community that it's moving at the proper pace and no stone is unturned."

No arrest has been made in Oscar Grant III's death, which has sparked public outrage and accusations of police brutality.

The videotaped killing has inflamed long-running tensions between law enforcement authorities and many African-American residents in Oakland — a city that has struggled to control homicides and gang activity.

The New Year's Day slaying of Grant is the latest in a series of incidents since the 1960s that have fueled mistrust of police in this city of about 400,000, including a fatal shootout with the Black Panthers, the acquittal of several cops accused of beating and framing suspects and the deadly shooting of another unarmed man in July.

Grant's death, captured on cell phone cameras and widely aired on television and the Internet, has led to angry protests and reinforced suspicions that police routinely use excessive force against black youths and get away with it.

"Oakland, unfortunately, has had a history of treating the African American community unfairly," said George Holland, Sr., an attorney who heads the Oakland chapter of the NAACP. "The community has a great distrust for police officers because they feel they can't be punished."

Public outrage at the young father's slaying has intensified as grainy footage of the shooting has played repeatedly on TV and online, while the officer remains free and not charged with any crime.

Anger over the shooting caused dozens of black community leaders and residents to berate BART officials for hours at a meeting Thursday — the morning after demonstrators torched cars, smashed store windows and threw bottles at officers in downtown Oakland. More than 120 were arrested and about 40 businesses were damaged. Two more arrests were made during a smaller demonstration Thursday night.

Three of the people arrested during Wednesday night's violence were arraigned Friday on various charges, including vandalism, arson and firearm possession.

"People are just fed up, and Oscar Grant is the match that lit up the dynamite," said Harry Williams, an Oakland minister and author of "Straight Outta East Oakland." Many residents perceive the police as "keepers of the gate instead of servants of the people," he said.

BART police patrol the agency's train stations in Oakland and elsewhere in the Bay Area. Grant was the first person killed by a BART officer since a 42-year-old man was shot in 2001 at a station in the nearby city of Hayward, said BART spokesman Jim Allison.

Despite criticisms from some black leaders, Oakland Police Department spokesman Jeff Thomason said the department reaches out to the community to work cooperatively on crime.

Thomason defended the 826-member agency's use of force, saying that fewer than one percent of contacts between officers and suspects result in shootings by police. There were 10 last year, including six fatalities, he said. No officers involved in shootings since 2004 were charged with crimes, and so far none have been fired.

"Officers are not going out there trying to gun down people," Thomason said.

Grant, a supermarket butcher with a 4-year-old daughter, was one of several men detained by police responding to reports of fighting on a BART train full of passengers returning from New Year's Eve celebrations.

Amateur video taken by several onlookers shows Grant being pushed to his stomach before an officer fired into the man's back, killing him.
 
Huffman said the videos indicate Grant wasn't armed, was lying on his stomach and was shot in the back, calling it "nothing short of murder."

"I'm not a lawyer and I'm not a prosecutor. It looked like murder to me, and we would not be happy if there were not criminal charges," she said. "I don't know what degree, I don't practice law, but you cannot see a video like that and think that there shouldn't be some criminal charges brought against that particular police person."

Grant's family and community leaders have called for the prosecution of the officer, Johannes Mehserle, 27. In addition to the Alameda County District Attorney's office, the Oakland Police Department and BART are also investigating the case.

Mehserle, who had been a BART officer for two years, resigned from the agency Wednesday, but remains free pending the investigation.

Elihu Harris, who like Brown, formerly served as mayor of Oakland and now is chancellor of the Peralta Community College District, said, "Justice delayed is justice denied" and he thinks Orloff already should have charged Mehserle.

Harris said, "There's a video and there was no probable cause" for Mehserle to shoot Grant, who was the father of a 4-year-old daughter and worked as a butcher at an Oakland grocery store but who also had several felony convictions and served time in state prison in 2007 and 2008.

Harris contended, "There's nothing to stop him (Mehserle) from fleeing," but Orloff has said he doesn't think Mehserle will flee and authorities know where he's staying, even though he has had to move at least twice because of death threats against him.

Friction between law enforcement and Oakland's black community has persisted for decades. In 1968, Black Panther Bobby Hutton, 17, was killed by police during a shoot-out.

Public confidence in the Oakland police was further undermined by a corruption case involving several officers known as the Riders who were accused in 2000 of planting evidence and assaulting drug suspects. The officers were fired but were eventually acquitted in two separate criminal trials. A judge ordered the department to implement reforms, and Oakland paid $11 million to 119 people who claimed they were abused.

Sociologist Benjamin Bowser of California State University East Bay said a confluence of factors high unemployment, cutbacks in social services and a police force operating in a high-risk atmosphere contributed to the anger after Grant's slaying.

Before Grant was killed, many black residents already were outraged by the fatal Oakland police shooting of Mack "Jody" Woodfox, 27, after a car chase in July.

Authorities said Officer Hector Jimenez fired his weapon because he believed Woodfox, who is black, was reaching for a gun, but no gun was found. Jimenez is on administrative leave pending an internal investigation.

"There is a sense of frustration, that the system is not responsive," said attorney John Burris, who is representing Woodfox's family and has filed a $25 million claim on behalf of Grant's family. "There is a sense among African American youth that police accused of misconduct against them are not held accountable."

In an effort to deal with rising community anger, BART officials announced that a delegation of its board would on Sunday hold a meeting with local leaders and elected officials. "This meeting we have planned will be another step in the healing process," said Carole Ward Allen, a board member.

The BART Police Officers Association issued a statement of condolence Saturday to Grant's family and said the union was working with investigators to "ensure that appropriate protocols are in place so this type of incident never happens again."

In addition, a pair of Bay Area lawmakers introduced legislation over the weekend that would provide a third-party review board to oversee the operation of the BART Police Department.

State Senator Leland Yee and Assemblyman Tom Ammiano said their goal was to increase accountability and oversight for BART officers.

Other prominent state lawmakers have also weighed in on Grant's death.

State Assemblyman Sandre Swanson, D-Oakland, who is the chair of the California Legislative Black Caucus, said caucus members "are concerned about quick justice in this case."

Swanson said in his view there was a problem with "the pace of the investigation and a lack of public confidence."

Everyone just wants "to make sure that justice is served," he explained.

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