11 July 201016 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Oscar Grant shooting: officer found guilty of involuntary manslaughter

all credits: The Guardian
9th July 2010

A white police officer who shot dead a black man in a controversial case in Oakland, California, has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter. The family of Oscar Grant, the victim, expressed their disappointment with the outcome. They had been hoping for a murder verdict.

Grant, 22, was shot in the back by policeman Johannes Mehserle, 28, while lying on the platform in a railway station on 1 January 2009. Mehserle claimed he had thought he had his Taser in his hand rather than his gun.

The shooting, which was shown on YouTube, led to a riot in Oakland, and there were fears of further trouble if Mehserle had been found not guilty. Police were yesterday deployed in riot gear in case of any outbreaks of violence.

23 June 201016 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Byron Case is Innocent!

compiled from: Free Byron Case
on behalf of family and supporters

On the morning of June 11, 2001, on a quiet suburban Kansas City street, twenty-two-year-old Byron Case was dragged from his bed by a tactical police unit. He did not know it at the time, but he was being arrested for murder. Led to a waiting Sheriff’s car in handcuffs, the only reply he got to his repeated questions was stern silence.

The murder of Byron Case’s friend Anastasia WitbolsFeugen almost four years earlier had never been solved. No evidence had been found at the scene, and basic forensics never determined when she died or what type of gun had been used to shoot her.

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16 June 201016 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Ken Clarke sets up secret inquiry into police killing of Azelle Rodney

originally published by: The Guardian
10th June 2010

A “secret” judicial inquiry is to be held into the death of Azelle Rodney, an unarmed 24-year-old black Londoner who was shot by a Metropolitan police marksman five years ago, the new justice secretary, Kenneth Clarke, has announced.

Rodney, a suspect in a major drugs investigation, was shot dead by an undercover team from Scotland Yard’s CO19 armed unit on a suburban road in Edgware, north London, on 30 April 2005 – 11 weeks before the death of Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell underground station.