Activists upset over authorities' handling of the fatal shooting of Oscar Grant by BART Police Officer Johannes Mehserle on New Year's Day plan to convene an "independent public tribunal" this week to investigate the incident.
Handling the tribunal is the ponderously titled Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, and Immigrant Rights By Any Means Necessary. (BAMN for short.) Yvette Felarca, Northern California director for BAMN, says the inquiry is necessary because BART and the Alameda County District Attorney's Office -- the latter of which is currently prosecuting Mehserle for homicide -- are engaged in a cover-up.
The group's first hearing will take place at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, March 4 at the Allen Temple Baptist Church in Oakland. If you're expecting anything close to a standard criminal-justice proceeding, think again. For one thing, the venerated American tradition of due process afforded to the accused will be out the window from day one, as Felarca explained in a telephone interview.
"Our agenda is pretty clear," she said. "Mehserle is a murderer and we want him convicted." Think of it, if you will, as guilty until proven more so. "We want to make this a chance for the community to be able to analyze the facts of the case so we can be confident that the conclusions we do draw are supported," Felarca said. "And we're confident they will be."
Mehserle, who is white, shot and killed Grant, an unarmed 22-year-old black man, on a BART station platform. The incident was captured on video and has stirred public outrage, including riots on the streets of Oakland on Jan. 7.
Felarca said the tribunal will review those videos, and feature testimony from those who knew Grant about his character. She said it's still not clear whether actual eyewitnesses to the shooting will speak at the tribunal, since their comments may be restricted by their participation in Mehserle's real trial.
Photo | anyjazz65
Fair enough. We're addicted. A co-worker recently shot us a link to Wordle.net, where you can create art via text written by you or anyone on God's green earth -- or, depending upon where you stand on biblical literalcy, God. In fact, what follows is the "Word art" for The Book of Genesis (King James Version). Obviously, the more often a word comes up in the text, the more prominently it's displayed in the word art:
"Officers ... responded to a traffic accident where a driver had struck another car, continued driving until she smashed into a street sign and then stopped. The officers queried the driver, who was obviously inebriated. She stated that she had been taking a number of medications and had been drinking 'too much vodka.' She further stated that she had been rushing to go to a liquor store on Noriega to get 'some more vodka.'"
The defendant is advised that there is a difference between pleading the fifth and pleading for a fifth.
To put the City Attorney's February 2008 ruling in an extreme nutshell, it found Alioto-Pier was already serving in her second "full term," quoting a line from the city charter stating that any supervisors "appointed ... to complete in excess of two years of a four-year term" will be deemed to have served a full term.
Lawyers are involved here, so you know it's going to get a little tricky. Alioto-Pier's contention is that this scenario doesn't match her situation. After being appointed by Gavin Newsom to fill his vacant supes' seat in 2004, Alioto-Pier won a special election 10 months later for a two-year term prior to winning re-election to a four-year term in 2006. Therefore, she never served two years in an appointed position - and for term limitation purposes, two-year terms and four-year terms aren't the same. You can read the Alioto-Pier ruling here:AliotoPier Opinion.pdf
Alioto-Pier contrasts her ruling with Herrera's generous finding in 2004 that former Supervisor Tom Ammiano -- a progressive who's ideologically simpatico with Herrera -- was eligible to run for a fourth term. The two-year term he served between 1998 and 2000 meant he did not serve "two successive four-year terms." Ammiano ended up serving 14 years in office. "I asked [Herrera] 'Is this political?'" recalls Alioto-Pier, one of the board's moderate members. "He said 'Of course not.'"
You can read the Ammiano ruling here: Ammiano Opinion.pdf
