a comment on civil liberties

I'm writing this short post before I head to work. It is a response to a New York Times article covering the riot that has broken out from the shooting of Oscar Grant by Oakland transit police.

The article doesn't mention a thing about the inhumanity suffered that night. It barely mentions that the cop, Johannes Mehserle shot Oscar Grant in the back when he was lying face down -- sorry, while cops were pulling him to the ground face down after he was asking cops to calm down because everyone was complying. Click on the title of this post and watch the video--everyone was complying with cops. Oscar Grant just may have been murdered because he talked directly to the officers, perhaps tried to bring some logic to the situation, perhaps he was telling the cops the truth and the cops were agitated and needed a reason not to let the people they were detaining go. Perhaps Oscar Grant was doing what anyone faced with an aggressive, armed person would do--try to calm them down.

Then they restrain him, shoot him in the back at point blank and then handcuff him.

And so the last line of the New York Times article goes as such:

"Federal law enforcement were also reported to be looking into whether Mr. Grant’s civil rights were violated in his killing."

Excuse me while I throw up.

What's left of his civil rights?? His right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness? He was killed. For nothing. For being black. For being a young black man in the face of a young white male cop.