No Arrests at Pro-Mehserle Rally

Heated exchanges, but no violence, in Walnut Creek (Video)
By: Richard Parks

Hundreds of people gathered in front of a Walnut Creek courthouse Monday to demonstrate—some on behalf of a man shot to death, others in support of the law enforcement officer who pulled the trigger.

The organizers of the demonstration, who drew attention to their cause through a Facebook page, planned the event in support of Johannes Mehserle, the former BART officer who shot and killed Oscar Grant III, a Hayward man, on New Year’s Day 2009. But Grant’s supporters appeared to outnumber Mehserle’s at Monday’s mostly peaceful demonstration.

Police reported no arrests, no injuries and no property damage at the demonstration, which drew an estimated 250 people to Ygnacio Valley Road in front of the Contra Costa County courthouse. Two nearby businesses were closed in anticipation of the rally, as was the court, but the street scene was in stark contrast to tense — but also mostly peaceful — protests in downtown Oakland earlier this month, when more than 1,000 people gathered on the day Mehserle’s verdict of involuntary manslaughter was handed down.

“Things went very, very well,” Walnut Creek Police Chief Joel Bryden said Monday evening. “We’re very pleased with what happened.”

Although without incident, the demonstration was not wholly harmonious. While some opposing demonstrators paired off and seemed lost in thoughtful discourse, others yelled and jeered disdainfully at one another. The opposing sides took very different messages from Grant’s killing, which has been fraught with claims of racism.

In a videotape of the killing, Mehserle, who is white, can plainly be seen shooting an unarmed Grant, who was black, through the back as he lay on a BART platform.

“I’m here in support of a wonderful man,” said one Mehserle supporter, who said she knew the former BART officer personally, but who refused to give her name.

Some Grant supporters saw the pro-Mehserle faction as insensitive. The organizers, who remained anonymous, have been criticized for planning a rally in the affluent, mostly white suburb of Walnut Creek, instead of in Oakland, where Grant was killed and where previous demonstrations have taken place.

“I think they just want to justify killing a black man whose life they don’t respect anyway,” said Oshmin Oden, a 32-year-old Vallejo resident who grew up near the Fruitvale BART station, where Grant was killed.

For hours, epithets filled the air as the two groups clashed verbally. 

Law enforcement officers in riot gear kept tight control over the event, cordoning off protesters on one side of Ygnacio Valley Road, outside of the Walnut Creek Courthouse. Pro-Grant demonstrators staked a claim to the sidewalk below the courthouse parking lot. In addition to local police, officers from Concord, San Ramon and the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s office could be seen, at times greeted with cheers from Mehserle supporters.

Mehserle’s family members were reportedly at the scene, wearing T-shirts bearing his name, although they would not identify themselves to a reporter.

At about 4:45 p.m., Grant supporters marched up Ygnacio Valley Road to the Walnut Creek BART station. They were met there by law enforcement officers, who temporarily closed a gate, blocking the station entrance. After talking to leaders of the Justice for Oscar Grant movement, the demonstrators were allowed to pass into the station in an orderly fashion, and soon the crowd dispersed. Justice for Oscar Grant organizers offered BART fare for those who didn’t have it.

This video by The Bay Citizen's Richard Parks shows scenes from the protest: