Oakland: Death In The Context Of A Series Of Deaths- One Triggers Protests, The Killer Makes The Life Worth $25 Million - Payable By The Public

Oakland: Death In The Context Of A Series Of Deaths- One Triggers Protests, The Authority of the Killer Makes The Life Worth $25 Million - Payable By The Public


Let me set the table prior to making my argument.

On Wednesday night, angry demonstrator smashed store windows and burned cars to protest the killing of 22-year-old Oscar Grant on New Year's Day at a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) subway station by Johannes Mehserle, a BART police officer

Oscar Grant did not deserve to be shot and killed. Officer Johannes Mehserle acted in an irresponsible manner. These was nothing about the situation in which he should have drawn his service revolver. I assume that BART officers go through the same training as do regular police officers and that they are required to take continuing fire arms training. What ever the training and procedures are - they need to be modified because this was a text book case of an unnecssary police killing even if it was an accident. Once the tool of deadly force is drawn the doors of certain tragic possibilities are opened.

My theory of "Don't start none, won't be none" also applies to police officers. If you don't want riots then stop killing people who are handcuffed and unarmed. While BART and Oakland cannot afford to piss away $25 million it was the actions of this police officer which opened them up to such liability.

It is important that I set it up this way because I do not want to be accused of justifying the shooting or "tweaking the nose" of Oscar Grant's family. My argument IS NOT ABOUT OSCAR GRANT and anything that HE has done.

My focus is upon the PROTESTERS and CIVIL RIGHTS COMMUNITY and ultimately their valuation of BLACK LIFE!

THE IRONIES OF THE SITUATION

The shooting of Oscar Grant happened within the city of Oakland California. In the year that just closed out there were 124 homicides in the city. It takes little imagination to assume that in Oakland as with so many other urban areas that a significant number of these victims were young Black males.......just like Oscar Grant.

Oakland Interactive Homicide Map

The key difference is that few if any of these deaths resulted in a civil protest and most assuredly - no $25 million lawsuit was filed because the killer had neither the "deep pockets" nor the "authority" to use deadly force bestowed up them as police have. These people are no less dead today though. They suffered the same fate as Oscar Grant absent the valuation of their lives as expressed by their killer.

PRIVITIZATION OF PUBLIC FUNDS BY VICTIMIZATION

This BART Police killing of an individual speaks to a public interest conflict that I have noted many times in the past.

BIG BUDGET DEFICIT FOR BART TO RESULT IN JOB LOSSES

BART Seeks to Fill Deficit Left By Budget Cuts

While agencies across California are suffering from cuts made by the state budget, BART officials say the cuts to their organization are larger than expected, leaving them scrambling for options.

The Bay Area's public transit budget was cut by more than $300 million, and BART was given $42.6 million less this year than it had requested from the state.

Like many other agencies, BART did plan for reductions, but was unprepared for the final budget of $19.6 million. BART has already allocated $28.3 million in spending-$8.7 million more than it will get from the state, transit officials said.

This is the latest in a series of deep cuts to the state's public transit system, which was reduced by $1 billion last year and $1.7 billion this year, said Randy Rentschler, a spokesperson for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.

"Transit has been the go-to place in the state budget," he said. "We're unable to make rational, reasonable, even near-term plans."

Gail Murray, president of BART's Board of Directors, said that the board is considering several options to make up for the budget shortfall, including a fare hike at peak commuter hours or a reduction of maintenance staff.

The key public interest conflict that I speak of is the call for "justice" via a big punitive damage pay out for wrongful death that comes from an entity which directly serves the public and is already on the financial skids. I understand what some are going to say: "The insurance company is going to pay the damages". This is only correct in an indirect way. The fact is that BART pays insurance premiums and thus if their insurance company pays out then the premiums are going to increase as well.

I have pointed out this same conflict with regard to other conflicts:

• The public transit labor unions continuously demand pay increases or protest layoffs at the expense of higher transit fares that fall disproportionately on the poor and working class that make use of the transit services
• The Atlanta-Fulton County Library system suffered a $17 million racial discrimination lawsuit (by White librarians against Black administrators). This money could have been used to purchase books and other educational media
  

The key phenomenon that I wish to bring up is the conflict between protecting the funding of a key public interest and the need to punish a "deep pocketed" entity so that they will implement corrective action so that it will not happen again. I further describe the situation as the irony that the same people who would strongly protest the large salaries that the executives of these same firms draw down while "the workers are being laid off" are of the same group of people who would be inclined to pay out $25 million to the VICTIMS. The irony being that VICTIMIZATION is more of a justification for financial reward than are those who EARN the money per a contractual agreement.

Thus we have a lump of money that is used to fund a "public good" taken from that public entity and given to PRIVATE HANDS as compensation for the harm that was done to them.

This is one area where the normal sentiments about public funding, income distribution, and capitalism gets turned on its head. (I am not saying that the lawsuit is a capitalistic exploit). The wealthy corporate titan is said to draw upon the labor efforts of the workers as a means of aggregating his wealth and selfishly hording it for his own purposes. The fact that the workers are robbed of their key labor resources that they have to exchange within the transaction with their employer means that they live at a degraded standard of living.

How then should be evaluate the real costs upon these same individuals when $25 million that COULD HAVE BEEN USED for more workers, more buses, more bus routes and thus a higher level of service to transport the working class people around the Bay area instead goes into the private pockets of the aggrieved victim and their trial attorney who gets 33%?

I am not casting judgment but instead detailing the tough economic choices that are present.

Most certainly this is a cousin to the situation where certain banks who received the federal bailout paid bonuses to their executive and thus effectively "privatized" public funds.