Pro-Mehserle Rally Highlights Race
Event to support ex-officer planned in mostly white Walnut Creek
“Justice for Oscar Grant” has been the rallying cry on the streets of Oakland of late. But in Walnut Creek on Monday, they’ll be chanting “Justice for Johannes.”
A small and slowly growing group of supporters plans to demonstrate at a Walnut Creek courthouse Monday on behalf of Johannes Mehserle, the white former BART officer who shot Grant, an unarmed black man, on New Year’s Day in 2009.
In the wake of an involuntary manslaughter verdict for Mehserle, a Facebook group called “SUPPORT PROTEST FOR JOHANNES MEHSERLE” has formed to show “support for Johannes, his family, and our law enforcement officers.” The rally will take place less than two weeks after thousands of people protested on behalf of Grant last Thursday in downtown Oakland.
“Johannes Mehserle was found NOT guilty of 2nd degree murder and voluntary manslaughter but WRONGLY convicted of Involuntary Manslaughter,” according to the group's description on Facebook.
Grant supporters protesting in Oakland last week said they believed the verdict was too lenient. But those who plan to attend the Monday rally said Mehserle, who was videotaped from several angles shooting Grant through the back while he was prone on a BART platform, should have been acquitted of all charges. Mehserle faces a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.
Grant family attorney John Burris said the organizers’ decision to hold the rally in Walnut Creek — an affluent suburb that is more than 80 percent white — instead of Oakland, where Grant was killed and which is just 30 percent white, was a calculated one.
“There was a big elephant in that court room that people were unwilling to talk about or even acknowledge and that was the racial divide,” Burris said. “The undercurrent of the defense’s position was to characterize the African-American community in a negative way and to characterize Oakland in a negative way.”
Several supporters who live in the area of Walnut Creek said they believe pro-Grant activists’ judgments of Mehserle are racially motivated.
“The guy’s already lost his job, his career, he’ll be a felon from this,” said Michael Stinnett, a Concord resident. “I think it comes down to race—on the black side.”
Mehserle supporters contacted Wednesday said they based their judgments on the video of the killing, which shows Mehserle reacting with surprise after the shooting.
“I thought he should have been acquitted,” said Kathleen Melendy, a Concord retiree who plans to attend the rally. “It was a total accident. I think you need to be objective.”
The event also drew the attention of former peace officers who plan to attend in solidarity.
“I understand this can happen to any of us,” said Ami Wiltz, a former San Mateo County deputy who works for a private investigator in Concord, and who grew up in Oakland. “When there’s any confrontation or altercation it’s almost like you get tunnel vision. I kind of see it when I was watching the video.”
When George Ciccariello-Maher, an Oakland resident and activist who was involved in organizing the Oscar Grant demonstrations, heard about the location of the protest, his reaction was: “Of course.”
Ciccariello-Maher said his group, the Oakland Assembly for Justice for Oscar Grant, planned to meet Thursday night to discuss possible action on Monday, or a possible counter-protest in Walnut Creek. But the most powerful action might be to let the Mehserle supporters speak for themselves, Ciccariello-Maher said.
“The fact that it’s such an obviously racist action is not going to help the defense to Johannes Mehserle,” he said.
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