Local News

OAKLAND (CBS 5 / AP / BCN) ― About 20 people rallied outside the Bay Area Rapid Transit District's headquarters in Oakland Monday to protest an incident in which a BART police officer shot and killed 22-year-old Oscar Grant III at the Fruitvale station early on New Year's Day.

Shouting passionately through a bullhorn, protest organizer Evan Shamar of Oakland said, "A 22-year-old unarmed father was executed and assassinated and BART expects us to swallow that the shooting may have been an accident."

Alleging that Grant "was murdered in cold blood," Shamar said the BART police officer who shot Grant should be prosecuted for first-degree murder.

BART officials said Grant was shot on the platform at the Fruitvale station after a train was stopped following reports that two groups of people were fighting on a train traveling from San Francisco to the Dublin/Pleasanton station.

John Burris, an attorney hired by Grant's family, said at a news conference Sunday that he plans to file a $25 million lawsuit against BART because witnesses say that Grant wasn't posing a threat to anyone and was lying on his stomach on the station's platform with his back to officers when he was shot.

BART spokesman Linton Johnson told reporters Monday at a briefing at the agency's 18th-floor offices that BART officials won't have much to say about the incident until their investigation is completed, a process he said will take at least several weeks.

"We urge the public to be patient with us," Johnson said. "It's frustrating to us because people are getting upset about what happened, but we owe it the public, the family (of Grant) and the police officer to get all the facts."
Johnson said, "We want to investigate this quickly but we don't want to have a rush to judgment."

He said that in addition to videos that witnesses have given to local television stations, BART has received from a citizen at least one additional video that he said has "a different perspective" on the incident.

Home video, provided to CBS 5 on Saturday by 19-year-old witness Kristin Vargas, would seem to support the contention that Grant was laying on his stomach with his hands behind him on a train platform when a single shot was fired by a BART officer.

BART spokesman Jim Allison said the officer's gun went off while police were trying to restrain Grant at BART's Fruitvale station in Oakland, and that Grant was not cuffed.

Johnson called for people who have additional videos to give them to BART instead of the news media, saying that videos shown on television have the potential to "taint" witnesses to the incident.

"We owe the family a complete and honest investigation," Johnson said.

Johnson said BART has two video feeds at the Fruitvale station.

He said the video feed that goes to BART's police department didn't record footage of the incident, as it normally doesn't record incidents. But he said a video feed that goes to the transit agency's operations center did record the incident but an initial review of that video didn't show "anything of significance."

Bakari Olatunji, an organizer for the International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement in Oakland, said at Monday's rally that Grant was "unjustifiably murdered" and accused BART police, as well as the Oakland Police Department, of waging "a war against the black community."

Olatunji said he didn't think any of Grant's family members participated in the rally.

At one point the protesters rushed into the lobby of BART's headquarters at 300 Lakeside Drive in Oakland, near Lake Merritt, chanting, "No Justice, No Peace!" and "Oscar Grant was shot to death, BART P.D. took his last breath!"

Security officers escorted the protesters outside, where they continued their demonstration.

Grant, who had a 4-year-old daughter, lived in Hayward. He was remembered by family members at a news conference on Sunday as a loving father, a hard worker and a sports enthusiast.

Grant also had a criminal record; according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Grant served several months in state prison in 2007 and 2008. The Department of Corrections didn't disclose the offenses for which Grant was sentenced.

Records at the main Alameda County Courthouse in Oakland indicate that Grant had 12 separate cases between April 12, 2004, and May 8, 2008. But the records for all of those cases are at the Hayward Hall of Justice and weren't immediately available.

Shamar said another rally will be held at the Fruitvale station from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Wednesday.

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