Johannes Mehserle has been formally charged with murder for the New Year's Day shooting of Oscar Grant, an unarmed 22-year-old male who was detained after being involved in a fight on a subway train in Oakland, CA.
In three separate cell phone videos, Mehserle can be seen crouching with two other officers over Grant, who is lying on his stomach with his hands behind his back. Suddenly Meheserle stands up, draws his service weapon and shoots Grant once in his back.
It is apparent from the earlier portions of each video that Grant was cooperating with the officers and that he was unarmed. It is equally clear that from his prone position. It is almost impossible that Grant represented any threat whatsoever to Mehserle and his fellow transit police officers.
This event is first and foremost a litmus test of the American judicial system's unfair treatment of law enforcement officers charged with crimes. Barring the unlikely revelation of some unknown fact, Mehserle will likely be convicted.
Mehserle's only defense to date - given by a former Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) officer - has been that he supposedly mistook his firearm for his Taser. If the accused is acquitted of murder charges, then the system is as flawed as it was in the 1991 Rodney King trial and in 1999 when Amadou Diallo was shot 41 times for drawing his wallet in a hostile manner.
The one silver lining of this case is that it represents the future of ubiquitous surveillance, a double-edged sword in itself that has in this case made justice a far more attainable goal than it has been in the past. Everyone, law officers as well as the rest of us, must realize that in this brave new world there will be less and less of what we do that is not recorded in some way. At least in this instance, surveillance can remind the enforcers that they are being watched as well.
A line from Warren Ellis' Transmetropolitan comes to mind: "It's recorded somewhere; everything is. It's just a question of finding it." We may be exposed, but if we stand equally naked to the world, then we will at least be equally accountable.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
