Vol. 73/No. 8      March 2, 2009

Grant, a 22-year-old Black worker, was shot to death by a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) cop while being held face down on a train platform in nearby Oakland on New Year’s Day.

“We have to keep the protests going!” urged Jack Bryson, whose sons were with Grant when he was killed. Jackie and Nigel Bryson, along with Carlos Reyes, Fernando Anicete, and Michael Greer, are suing BART for $1.5 million in response to the brutal treatment meted out to them by the cops. Greer and Anicete were injured when police threw them to the ground. All were held handcuffed for five hours after they witnessed the killing of their friend.

Widespread outrage followed the release of videos of the shooting taken by passengers on the train. Johannes Mehserle, the cop who shot Grant in the back, was eventually arrested on charges of murder.

“They will try to cover up this case,” Bryson warned, pointing to the cops’ claims that the youth were “threatening” and “uncontrollable.” At the bail hearing on January 31, Mehserle’s lawyer termed the killing a “tragic accident,” saying that Mehserle meant to “tase” Grant, not shoot him with a gun. Mehserle is now out of jail on $3 million bail.

Grant’s godmother, Diana Davis-Marks, also spoke, describing him as a serious young man who held a job as a butcher, having graduated from an apprentice program.

Banners across the front of the union hall read, “An Injury To One Is An Injury to All” and “Free Troy Davis.”

A highlight of the rally was the talk by Martina Correia, the sister of Troy Davis, a Black man who is on death row on frame-up charges of killing a cop in Georgia in 1991.

She described how an international campaign has stayed the executioner’s hand three times when Davis was to be put to death. The case is now before a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Correia read part of a letter by her brother to supporters of his fight: “It is because of all of you I am alive today… . And no matter what happens in the days and weeks to come, this movement to end the death penalty, to seek true justice, to expose a system that fails to protect the innocent must be accelerated.”

Robert Bryan, the lead attorney for Mumia Abu-Jamal, spoke about the danger of execution that continues to hang over the Black rights activist’s head. Abu-Jamal has spent more than 25 years on death row after being framed up on charges of killing a Philadelphia cop in l981.

Bryan called on Abu-Jamal’s supporters to continue to “make noise” against the racist frame-up. Richard Brown also spoke. He is one of the defendants in the case of the San Francisco Eight, former members and supporters of the Black Panther Party charged with conspiracy to murder a policeman in l971. Pointing to the lack of evidence against the defendants, Brown called for the charges to be dropped.  
 
 
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