Al Sharpton

It has been a year and a half since the fateful night a New Year’s celebration turned deadly for a 22-year-old Black man in California.  He wasn’t engaged in a gang transaction gone wrong, nor was he evading police or hiding somewhere as a fugitive.  No, Oscar Grant was handcuffed face down on the ground with a police officer’s knee pinning his neck when another cop decided to draw his weapon and shoot him in the back.  The single bullet ended his young life as his friends and a train station full of people watched on in horror.  And now, on the heels of a verdict in the trial against the accused officer, Johannes Mehserle, the revulsion only intensifies.