Oakland Riots Make National News
Categories: City of Concord Headlines
Written By: Mayor Concord California
BART Police shoot an unarmed man on New Years and the public is pissed. Yesterday the body of Oscar Grant was layed to rest and hundreds of people from the Oakland community attended to pay their respects. The shooting has been all over the news and the people of Oakland and surrounding cities are demanding action by the Alameda County District Attorney. The BART Police Officer that shot Oscar Grant has turned in his formal resignation and he and his family are under police guard due to the death threats and public outcry.
This story is growing more and more by the day. Every day the officer refuses to make a statement and the Alameda District Attorney Tom Orloff stalls on pressing charges, the people of the community are getting more restless. The DA needs to make sure that the right charges are filed and that they have the evidence to get a conviction but that is no reason for this delay. I think if this was just some average Joe that was under investigation that they would already be in custody. Maybe with the situation as it stands, it’s better not to bring the BART Police Officer in just yet. I don’t know. Mostly because the Alameda DA and the BART Police Dept. are not providing a whole of of information to the people about what steps are being taken.
Last night after the memorial service for Oscar Grant, the people took to the streets of Oakland in a protest walking down the streets disrupting traffic and seemed to be keeping their protest a peaceful on. That all changed as the night drew on.
I was watching the news alerts and BART announcements on Twitter to the real time information of where the protesters were and what they were doing. Groups of protesters became rioters as the went through downtown Oakland setting fires smashing cars.
This story is even getting front page coverage on CNN.com
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January 8th, 2009 at 11:58 am
Why the hell can’t people just let the system work. Mob rule huh? It seems a certain segment of our society can do no wrong and the cops are never right. The rule of law is no longer the rule.
This is what you get with anarchy.Best way to handle anarchists is to crush them like a bug.
If the cop was wrong, the system will fuck him properly. Let the system work.
You want to burn cars and hurt people, then you deserve nothing but a bullet.
January 8th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Because the system has such a wonderful track record of working in the past. Of course, the bulk of the people of oakland are letting the system work. Hell, the bulk of the people who were at the protest were making a public call for accountability, to push the system to work.
Instead, though, everyone is focusing on a few dozen troublemakers who burned a few cars and smashed a few storefronts. We don’t paint all sports fans with that brush when they riot and burn and flip cars because their team won (or lost), do we?
January 8th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Good point. By the news coverage it looked like more than a few dozen people involved in the mayhem.
Concord Blogger’s last blog post..Oakland Riots Make National News
January 8th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
We have been told to stay off of blogs reporting on the news. The situation is much worse than people think. We have been told that we should expect full on riots LA style not like the small one last night. The entire police dept and sheriff dept is on call. Too many people with guns in Oakland and not enough police. I love my job.
January 8th, 2009 at 9:43 pm
I’m sorry that OPD is getting this crap. I hope you guys are okay out there.
January 9th, 2009 at 3:39 am
We the people are sick of police.
They kill, steal, cheat, lie, bully, and on and on.
It is time we stand up to them.
Enough is enough.
Stop a cop today!
I am,
George Vreeland Hill
January 9th, 2009 at 9:36 am
If the system will take care of it then why did it happen in the first place? Murder is what happened an 3 other officers that were sworn to uphold the law just looked the other way. Is that the system this Mayor is proud of. Why are not all of these men not in jail? Does the Cheif of police condone this kind of action from his officers? Is this the kind of law they have sworn to uphold? Who is responsable for this kind of action from the police force? Is there a proper procedure in the police manual that calls for this type of a responce to a murder?
Somebody needs to take responsability for these actions not only murder but the failure to arrest this murderer right after it happened. Why was any of these criminals allowed to leave? The man who fired the fatal shot broke the law and the men who were sworn to uphold the law broke the law by lettig him walk away. As far as the law should see this murder they were all criminals. ( law breakers) Arrest the whole bunch not just this one man let them all know justice will be upheld. Make an example for the rest of the police force to follow. That is if you really want to do what is right and fair. And let them everyone have a day in court by a jury not some plea deal.