Oakland shooting fuels anger over police brutality

By JASON DEAREN and TERRY COLLINS
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — The videotaped killing of an unarmed black man by a transit police officer here has inflamed long-running tensions between police and many African-American residents.

Public outrage at the New Year's Day slaying of 22-year-old Oscar Grant intensified as grainy footage of the shooting played repeatedly on television and the Internet, while the officer remained free and not charged with any crime.

Dozens of black community leaders and residents berated Bay Area Rapid Transit 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 100 people were arrested and about 300 businesses were damaged Wednesday. Three of the people arrested during the violence were arraigned Friday on various charges, including vandalism, arson and firearm possession.

To many, Grant's death is the latest in a series of incidents — from a deadly shootout with the Black Panthers in the 1960s to the fatal shooting of another armed man in July — that have fueled mistrust of the police.

"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 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. "The community has a great distrust for police officers because they feel they can't be punished."

Harry Williams, an Oakland minister, viewed Wednesday's violent street protest in the context of that perceived injustice.

"People are just fed up, and Oscar Grant is the match that lit up the dynamite," he said. Many residents perceive the police as "keepers of the gate instead of servants of the people," he added.

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