Jan 09 2009
The Sorrow and the Pity
I don’t usually write about serious topics. Wars, politics, and other grave issues are for wiser heads and greater pens than mine. Critics of the late Duchess of Windsor have pointed out that her letters written during wartime omitted this huge fact in favor of things like gowns and parties, and the same thing can truthfully be said of this dilettante featherhead. But this is so close to home and so upsetting that I just have to speak up.
I mentioned in passing that there was a shooting at my local BART station on New Year’s Day. Shootings are not a rarity in Oakland, but this one caught my attention because it was the station I always use, whether I’m going to the city or downtown Oakland, and it’s only a mile and a half from my house. I guess it’s human nature to give more attention to news items that happen in one’s own neighborhood.
Things went from bad to worse when it was discovered that the young man who was killed was unarmed, lying on his stomach on the platform, and surrounded by BART police and others. Cell phone video shows the officer taking out his gun and shooting the 22 year old father in the back.
The officer in question had his lawyer hand in his resignation at the exact time he was to face an internal affairs investigation. At the very same hour, his victim was laid to rest as family and friends shared their terrible grief at this senseless loss.
Protests followed, and escalated into violence, with police cars overturned and storefronts burned. There were 105 arrests, but there were more protests, more peaceful, the following night. A makeshift shrine is still in place outside the BART station. When I go to work, I walk past the candles, flowers, and messages to the man who died on the platform where I wait for my train, wondering that such a tragedy could occur in such banal surroundings of uninspired concrete, commuters walking over a grave.