Oscar Grant: Police Brutality

For years, there have been many cases and events brought into light about police brutality and the unfair treatment of minorities especially African Americans. These cases were either police using unnecessary force or killing unarmed African Americans. With the rise of technology and social media, these tragic events can be recorded uploaded on websites and social media and bring those cases to light which warrant outrage and anger. Oscar Grant was one of those tragic cases where police officers killed another unarmed black men.
Oscar Grant was a young man killed on New Year’s 2009 in Oakland, California at Fruitvale BART Station by a BART police officer by the name of Johannes Mehserle and other officers were called for a report of fights that were occurring at Fruitvale Station, the officers detained Grant and other passengers off the train to the platform of the station. Officer Mehserle and his partner were restraining Grant. While trying to restrain him Mehserle told his partner to stand back, he was going to tase Grant, in recorded phone video you even see Mehserle making a movement with his hand to tell his

partner to back off, once his partner had backed off Mehserle shot Grant in his back. The next morning he was pronounced dead at Highland Hospital. Mehserle was sentenced to two years in prison but only served eleven months for good behavior. This event was captured on many phones, was uploaded to social media, and news outlet which caused anger and frenzy in the community even more once Mehserle was released out of jail early. This event was later shown in theaters in a film called “Fruitvale Station” directed by Ryan Coogler.
Ryan Coogler, the director of this movie, recognized the effect of the event of Grant’s death. Coogler wanted to create a movie based on Grant’s life in a less controversial way. Instead of mostly focusing on his death, Coogler created a movie based on his early life before his last day on earth. Coogler created this movie because he saw the strong influence it had on everyone and not just himself, him being from the same area as Grant he felt the effect. Coogler wanted to show the impact of his shooting and wanted to show the human issue of this shooting. Coogler used court testimony and publicly available stuff. He also worked with Grant family since Grant was so close to them, but he mostly worked with Grant’s girlfriend since they were much closer. Coogler used moments in his own life, Grant’s, and others to inspire him during the making of the movie.
Fruitvale Station was shot in 2013 at the actual place Oscar Grant was killed in the Oakland, California Fruitvale BART Station. Fruitvale Station is about Grant’s trying to live a good life now to support his girlfriend Sophina and his four-year-old daughter Tatiana. Flashbacks, of Grant’s last day in his life, that was spent with him and him family and friends going to San Francisco to watch fireworks on New Year’s Eve, and on his way back home, but was stopped by the police which ended in a tragedy. The beginning of the movie showed Grant being detained along with his friends and what lead to him being shot and killed at Fruitvale Station.
Oscar Grant is a young man during his real time on earth has been arrested five-times between the age of eighteen and till the day of his death. He was arrested for selling drugs and even stated a sworn statement to police that he was selling ecstasy. During the film, they even showed an emotional moment that Grant has with his mother Wanda Johnson while being in jail. The movie does not state why Grant was in jail but, the movie shows him having a connection with drugs which leads to believe that he was in jail for drug possession. During the time, Grant was alive in real life he was seriously thinking of taking care of his little family for them to move away and to leave their hometown. He even planned on going to Barber school to earn legal money from learning how to cut his inmates hair. Which this information was not in the Fruitvale Station. It was known that Grant could no longer get back his grocery job that he once had, it is also shown in the movie that he discusses this with Sophina. During the film you see Oscar Grant throwing away a bag of marijuana in the trash can that he intended to sell, but it is not a known fact what Grant actually done with this possession.
Mostly Fruitvale Station showed scenes of Wanda’s Oscar mother birthday.

Which was truly Wanda’s birthday in which the film actually shown what Grant truly bought for his mother’s birthday. During the film it is shown Oscar helping and flirting with a young woman struggling to buy something at the grocery that he worked at. He used the help of his grandmother to help figure out how to help the young lady, this was one of the real-life-based events that occurred before the event. There were other scenes that were true based on Oscar life, his mother telling Grant and his friends to take a train rather than drive to see the fireworks, and he told his daughter Tatiana that he would take her to get pizza and take her to Chuck E. Cheese, where in the next scene she questions her mother where is her

father.
One of the made-up scene shown in Fruitvale Station is seen when Oscar meets a stray dog at the gas station and gets hit by a car. Ryan Coogler states that this was a real life occurring situation with his younger brother. He used that scene as a gap for a missing day that he had no information on. Oscar always wanted a pet, and Oscar was a loving person so he seen Oscar in that moment of the situation. Ryan Coogler compared the pit bull to black men “You never hear about a pit bull doing anything good in the media,” he told Huffington Post. “In many ways, pit bulls are like young African American males. Whenever you see us in the news, it's for getting shot and killed or shooting and killing somebody for being a stereotype.”
During the night that Oscar Grant was killed, there were no facts about what truly transpired that night of his death mostly because BART police officers did not take any eyewitness statement. They may be many recorded evidence but they were taken on different angles for them to see what truly went on. The police officers of that night sent the trains on to take its next course after Grant’s death and made no effort during the investigation according to San Francisco Chronicle. “None of the seven officers at Fruitvale radioed that an officer-involved shooting had taken place,” the Chronicle notes. “Supervisors sent to the Fruitvale Station initially were in the dark, while officers at stations down the line did not know to expect a train full of witnesses.”
In court documents filed by the Superior Court in August 2009, one witness on the train stated that Grant and another man known as David Horowitch, who knew Grant when they were both inmates was in “nothing more than a wrestling match.” The same witness said that he and his friends helped break up the fight. Another witness also saw Grant and Horowitch fighting but said that there were as many as “10-12 black males” involved altogether. Horowitch said himself he wasn’t involved in a fight with Grant that night. In Fruitvale Station, they change Horowitch’s name to Daniel Cale.
David Horowitch also known as Daniel Cale is introduced in Fruitvale Station in a flashback scene of Oscar in jail; during his mother’s visit, the two get into a shouting match after Cale makes a rude remark which is the cause of the argument on the train. But it is not truly known if Horowitch and Grant got in an altercation while in prison. During the final moment in film Coogler shows what truly went on at Fruitvale. It is shown that Grant, his friends, and girlfriend got off the train, Grant’s girlfriend went ahead downstairs to wait for them. The officers who arrived on the scene first, Tony Pirone and Marysol Domenici, gathered up Grant and the four of his friends. Several witnesses testified that Pirone was aggressive, cursing and using excessive force on the group of men. Passengers on the stopped train began to record what was going on, one witness who testified during Mehserle’s true trial state that she took out her phone because “What I saw I thought was wrong.”
Other details that were used in the film were pulled from witnesses’ videos and testimonies, including Pirone using the phrase “Bitch ass nigger, right?” which can be heard on some recordings. Piorne says he was repeating something Grant had said to him, and Coogler shows such an exchange between Oscar and a police officer. It is known that Oscar did not resist the officers during his last moments. One witness who caught the incident aid Grant was “cooperating” and begging the officers not to shoot him as Pirone and Mehserle forced him to the ground.
Once that moment is over the movie pulls up recorded videos with subtitles of Mehserle, who claimed that he is going to reach for his taser but reaches for his gun, and shoots Oscar. Mehserle was convicted of murder, for eleven years. He was released six months late in jail on parole for good behavior. Pirone was fired after the incident.
This movie was created to give a voice for the people on what truly goes on, and gives up a message that something that has been going on for years has never stopped and we need to come together and bring it to the light. Coogler showed things about Oscar Grant’s life he did not sugar coat the wrong that he has done in his life but he shown that not only was he just a young black man who was killed but a father, a son, and a man who wanted to change his life around and become a better man not just for his self but for his family. The movie shows the true injustices treatment of police brutality that minorities live by every day, this film was one of the things that we need in the world to bring the light towards police brutality.