By Khalida Sarwari
The Bay Area Rapid Transit District board of directors today announced the formation of a police oversight committee to investigate the fatal shooting of Oscar Grant III by a BART police officer early New Year’s Day.
The announcement was made at a community meeting held by the board that BART Director Carole Ward Allen said marks “another step in the healing process.”
The meeting brought together a potpourri of community members and leaders alike, all who called for justice for the death of the 22-year-old Hayward man and rapid action from BART and other agencies investigating the shooting.
Speakers also tied the shooting to the larger issue of race.
Rev. Amos Brown, president of the San Francisco chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People urged the board members to “come to the ‘hood where people are suffering.”
“We want healing, but many times it doesn’t come unless there’s surgery,” Brown said. “We don’t need any more analysis. BART needs to ‘fess up about discrimination toward minorities.”
Keith Muhammad of the Oakland mosque of the Nation of Islam mentioned the suffering of the other men who were handcuffed on the Fruitvale station platform and forced to witness what he called a “horrific murder.”
Like many other speakers, Muhammad emphasized the need for an oversight review based in the community “from citizens concerned with justice, not politicians concerned with interests.”
Following remarks made by a female Oakland student calling on BART to bring those responsible to justice, both George Holland, president of the Oakland branch of the NAACP and Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson expressed concern about the image of the city in youths’ eyes.
“I’m deeply concerned about how our system is being judged and how our young people see our system operating,” Carson said.
One concerned citizen wondered aloud about the training policy police officers are required to undergo.
“I want to learn what they are learning about behavior,” he said, adding, “This whole system needs to be revamped.”
At a meeting last week, board directors had agreed to post information about the training procedure for BART police officers on the Web site but it still not been up at the time of today’s meeting.
A frustrated City Councilwoman Desley Brooks complained to the board it had not moved a step forward since the incident took place more than a week ago.
“You responded only because a community got outraged,” Brooks said.
Brooks’ remarks caused Allen to leave the room.
The board will hold another meeting on Monday at 1:30 p.m. at the BART boardroom at 300 Lakeside Drive in Oakland to further discuss the formation of a police oversight committee.
BART spokesman Linton Johnson said he hopes BART police’s preliminary investigation will be completed by the end of this week, at which time the evidence will be overturned to the district attorney’s office for review.
