Thursday, January 8, 2009, 9:14pm
"WE WON'T rest until we have honored Oscar Grant by winning justice for his family and ending police brutality in Oakland."
Those were the words of Dereca Blackmon, one of the principal organizers of a rally and march of nearly 1,000 people on January 7 to protest the murder of 22-year-old Oscar Grant III early on New Year's Day by police on an Oakland transit station platform.
Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) officer Johannes Mehserle fired a bullet into Grant's back as the father of a 4-year-old girl lay on his stomach, his hands cuffed, according to a lawyer for the Grant family. The bullet went through Grant's body, ricocheted off the concrete station platform, and punctured his lungs.