Hundreds of citizens and community leaders packed into the Bay Area Rapid Transit board room and two overflow rooms demanding the group take responsibility for a subway officer's shooting that left a young man dead.The BART board of directors meeting started with a moment of silence for Oscar Grant, a 22-year-old father who was killed on New Year's Day in a crowded train station, but it quickly turned into a parade of angry speeches by elected officials, activists and outraged citizens.For nearly six hours, according to local media, about 60 people addressed the board.
The public asked the BART directors, and they agreed, to set up a committee to review procedures. They also discussed the possibility of creating a civilian review board. Inside the room, people clutched Grant's photo. Some held signs against police brutality. A couple of times citizens chanted loudly and pumped their fists in the air.Grant's mother, Wanda Johnson, dressed in a shirt with her son's face and the words "RIP Oscar," held a news conference Thursday afternoon at the family attorney's office to plead with the public to stop the rioting breaking out in response to the shooting, according to CNN affiliate KTVU-TV.
"You're hurting people who have nothing to do with the situation. You're vandalizing their property, hurting their cars and breaking their windows. Please just stop it, please," Johnson said at the news conference.Johnson wiped tears from her eyes as her son's friends also pleaded for calm.
Footage from KTVU showed demonstrators rampaging through the streets of Oakland, California, on Wednesday protesting Grant's death. The Oakland Police Department made 105 arrests, including a mass arrest of about 80 people .. The charges include inciting a riot, vandalism, assault on a police officer and unlawful assembly, he said. One officer was injured, but not seriously, Some protesters lay on their stomachs, saying they were showing solidarity with Grant, who was shot in the back as he was face-down on the floor at a train station.
get the full article at: CNN.com
The public asked the BART directors, and they agreed, to set up a committee to review procedures. They also discussed the possibility of creating a civilian review board. Inside the room, people clutched Grant's photo. Some held signs against police brutality. A couple of times citizens chanted loudly and pumped their fists in the air.Grant's mother, Wanda Johnson, dressed in a shirt with her son's face and the words "RIP Oscar," held a news conference Thursday afternoon at the family attorney's office to plead with the public to stop the rioting breaking out in response to the shooting, according to CNN affiliate KTVU-TV.
"You're hurting people who have nothing to do with the situation. You're vandalizing their property, hurting their cars and breaking their windows. Please just stop it, please," Johnson said at the news conference.Johnson wiped tears from her eyes as her son's friends also pleaded for calm.
Footage from KTVU showed demonstrators rampaging through the streets of Oakland, California, on Wednesday protesting Grant's death. The Oakland Police Department made 105 arrests, including a mass arrest of about 80 people .. The charges include inciting a riot, vandalism, assault on a police officer and unlawful assembly, he said. One officer was injured, but not seriously, Some protesters lay on their stomachs, saying they were showing solidarity with Grant, who was shot in the back as he was face-down on the floor at a train station.
get the full article at: CNN.com
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