Hot night in Oakland: Oscar Grant killed by Mehserle in "involuntary manslaughter" - "My son was murdered" - Street tweets from protests

Full statement from Wanda Johnson, Oscar Grant's mother Reaction from Grant's mother to verdict | Video | abc7news.com

A long night for residents of Oakland as former BART cop Mehserle somehow won an "involuntary manslaughter" with gun verdict after killing Oscar Grant Jan 1 2009. Found a lot of good social media items around the situation and even an awesome track.

Updates from Indybay: San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center -- and a hat tip to Dave Id and the Indybay people for pushing out the real facts one week after another.

Thursday Jul 8th, 2010 11:30 PM : Police Officer Memorial Vandalized in Fresno Photos

Thursday Jul 8th, 2010 11:05 PM : Oscar Grant Fresno Demonstration demands Justice! Photos

Thursday Jul 8th, 2010 8:35 PM : Foot Locker has been liberated. Photos

Track of the night - "Native Guns - Handcuffs (No Justice Remix)" produced by ET Unchained Links - NATIVE GUNS (KIWI & BAMBU) REUNITE - Download link HERE. Sweet song via djphatrick:

Hours away from the verdict of the historic Oscar Grant trial, rappers Kiwi and Bambu (along with DJ Phatrick) have reunited as Native Guns to release their latest song, “Handcuffs” (produced by Six Fingers).

“With so much emotion and uncertainty around the outcome of this case, we felt a sense of urgency to come back together and do this track” states Kiwi, a former Oakland resident. Bambu adds, “We both experienced the L.A riots in 1992 firsthand, and we wanted to remind people of the lessons learned from back then, so we can keep them in mind as we move forward with this current situation.”

Kiwi breaks the song down further: “The message is threefold: to validate the community’s anger around the blatant murder of this young man, to spark a discussion and deeper analysis of what police are there to do beyond just enforcing the law, and to get folks to think strategically about how they want to react to this verdict, whatever it ends up being.” [more]

graceface: Dude, 10 flash-bang/sound cannon booms in the past 2 minutes. What the hell is going on down there?! #oscargrant

Mboda: "Of course it was involuntary manslaughter. Volunteers don't get pay and benefits"

aebldee: "Cops got their gas masks out... Time to cut"

Get Yr Tweets: From around the scene & remotely: try searching for #ogtrial and #oscargrant - OscarGrantTrialLA (OscarGrantTrial) // Great stuff via: racialjustice // Amy Gahran (agahran) // Osandi Sekou (OSXyZ) // kiwi illafonte (kiwizzo) // Good photos from Jeff Chang (zentronix) // Aldrin Bulayo (aldrin16) // Davey D (mrdaveyd) // OaklandSeen (OaklandSeen) // indybay (indybay) // reallykot // juliannehing // jonmosesjackson // SandmanEsq // troy // Oakland Beat (OaklandBeat) // OakFoSho // youthradio // PrisonReformMvt // periqueblend // Dasani (Dasani_01) // bea (freetobea) // Marc Lamont Hill // Grace Breedlove // ronagirl // NestoRivera // mysticshyne // Marianne Manilov (MSQRD) // San Francisco Appeal (sfappeal) // KGO Radio (kgoradio) // via Osxyz: "@KevChoice @zentronix @mrdaveyd@bamuthi @kiwizzo @thebaycitizen @oaklandLocal@claraJeffrey be careful people." //

A few more local & remote: Alonis (Alonis) // sue hepner (swellyn) // mactavish (mactavish) // D Sharp (djdsharp) // Bay Area ISO (norcalsocialism) // Boothism // 4SquareEastBay // JoeCBS5 // EastBayExpress // rachelswan (rachelswan) // senorkaos // Isaac Miller (isaacnoah) // jasmint (jazzyrani) // miamingus // LilianaSegura // BootsRiley // stimulator // jeremy scahill (jeremyscahill) // señorkaos (senorkaos) // Beth Bissmeyer // bryttny nunley //

An SF MUNI bus just pulled up and unloaded a brigade of cops. Wow... Police do whatever the fuck they want #OscarGrant -- isaacnoah about 4 hours ago

Sweet pics: Gallery from Jsight: Mehserle Verdict Response // Citizens please be calm on Flickr. More: Slide show: Reaction to the Johannes Mehserle verdict - Inside Bay Area

UPDATED: Johannes Mehserle: Guilty of Involuntary Manslaughter - SFist. Classic gallery: Scenes from Oakland After Mehserle Verdict - SFist

Youth Radio -- Youth Media International: "A Broken Window, That's Not a Human Life, That's Not Violence"

Police officers memorial vandalized in Fresno : Indybay -

Because Police show so little respect for the life of the people they so visciously gun down, i.e. Oscar Grant, concerned citizens in Fresno vandalized a police officers Memorial in Fresno's courthouse park tonight. If the cops aren't going to show any respect for the people they are supposed to "Protect and Serve" we are not going to show any respect for their fallen.
The actions of the Police in Oakland tonight also show their disrespect for justice in General. Their heavy handed violence towards protestors just reinforces their total disconnect with the people of Oakland. Talk about outside agitators. No Justice, No Peace, Fuck the Police!

More updates via Oscar Grant Protests - for example the report on looting at Whole Foods. Video from Oakland local, good interview.

Items from Indybay: YouTube - Riot in Oakland After Killer Cop Gets "Involuntary Manslaughter" Charge (Rough Cut). 14th & Broadway: Oscar Grant's Grandfather Speaks : Indybay. Raging Grannies! Photos from Rage-Out in Palo Alto : Indybay. NLG Criticizes Mehserle Verdict As Gross Injustice : Indybay.

Good analysis: Making Sense of the Mehserle Verdict - COLORLINES. "MY SON WAS MURDERED"--GRANT'S MOM. Oscar Grant, A Victim of American Fear. Oscar Grant will not be playing for Miami cause he was murdered by a cop « Jack & Jill Politics

Oakland Local: Tons of videos/photos and a timeline @ BREAKING: Scattered Crowds Continue to Cause Havoc near 14th and Broadway | Oakland Local

LIVE VIDEOS earlier: with that corporate "hooray for crackdown" bias you know and love: ABC7 LIVE VIDEO: Continuing coverage of reaction to Mehserle verdict / KRON.com.

LIVE POLICE RADIO: Pretty interesting stuff broadcast over Radioreference.com: Alameda County Sheriff, and Fire, Hayward Fire Live Scanner Audio Feed. Posted by someone who adds: "I am also feeding the OAKLAND PD and FIRE. I also have TAC channels the Sheriff is using for the OAKLAND RIOT CONTROL, Big Crowds at 14th & Broadway in Oakland. I am home, and monitoring."

PHOTOS: Live blog: Cops pour in to Oakland to try to stop looting - San Jose Mercury News - some late evening notes:

11 p.m. At least 50 arrested so far

Police Chief Anthony Batts held a press conference at 10:30 p.m. and said about 50 people have been arrested so far. Most were arrested for refusing to disperse. Thirty nine of those were arrested in the 1700 block of Broadway. Some are from San Francisco and Oakland. Batts said he is disappointed in people's actions tonight. "This city is not the wild, wild west," he said. Batts said police have the protesters boxed in and are making arrests as quickly as possible. Asked why police stood back for a while tonight as things heated up, he said, "When you have a large crowd in there, you can't just run into one location, one spot. Police didn't want to cause more problems,'' he said.

10:45 p.m. More businesses hit by violence

Graffiti on an empty building on the corner of 22nd and Broadway says "Oakland is our amusement park tonight!" A man at 23rd and Valdez was arrested because he had a gun. Two banks have had their windows smashed at 21st and Broadway. At Ozumo, someone smashed a window and there are broken bottles around the restaurant. Oakland Acura at 24th and Harrison had its windows broken. Whole Foods has also been struck; windows broken at the store at Bay and Harrison streets.

10:20 p.m. More than 60 police officers being brought in from Contra Costa County

Hundreds of police officers from Berkeley, Fremont, Hayward, San Francisco and other departments have been on hand today and tonight helping Oakland police with the protests, violence and looting in downtown. Now, at least 100 police officers from Contra Costa County are being brought in to assist. The crowd of a couple dozen is now at Grand Avenue and Telegraph near a Taco Bell. Oakland police are reporting that BART has closed the 19th Street station because of civil unrest.

10:05 p.m. Stores being looted on Broadway

The crowd just broke into the Oakland Coin and Jewelry Exchange and raided the place, and police are actively moving in. Oaksterdam at 19th and Broadway had its windows broken. Police threw flash bang grenades and are moving in with bean bag guns. JC Jewelry at 19th and Broadway had its metal gate ripped off and there is shattered glass everywhere and all the case inside are broken. People are breaking into the Sears store at 20th and Broadway using the metal bats to break the display window, stripping the mannequins of their clothes. Mannequins were set on fire. More flash grenades went off. All of the windows along Telegraph in the Sears are smashed. They were trying to get through the door, but there are security gates behind it.There was a pretty large mob and one man with a metal pipe smashing the winds.

SFAppeal.com: 19th Street BART To Stay Closed For The Night, Protests Reportedly Over For Now: News: SFAppeal

Live blog: Oscar Grant's grandfather speaks out for peace - San Jose Mercury News

Josh Wolf is out and about:

Ridiculous editorial: "it's now up to us to keep a lid on it." Ok then, thanks that's what we need... Filing from Reuters.

Oh back in Toronto, the fallout continues as some guy has to turn himself in for another "Conspiracy": G20 arrests: "We're still at a raw moment" | Media Co-op.

Meanwhile - hard to really disagree Toxicologist: Corexit Destroys Basic Biological Structure Of Life *Video* -- who cares? NEWS: LEGALIZATION OF MARIJUANA WILL LOWER PRICE...THAT'S A BAD THING? TURNS OUT IT IS... - Boondocks Bootleg - Unofficial Official Blog of The Boondocks.

Tune out to Tupac - Only God Can Judge Me "is it a crime to fight for what what is mine, everybodys dying, tell me whats the use of trying.." Via Rongcup about 2 hours ago