![]() Tatiana’s mother, Sophina Mesa, said she and Grant had a long talk about their future two days before his death, deciding they would move out of his mother’s house in Hayward and get their own place - perhaps in the quieter suburbs of Dublin or Livermore. He was telling me about the bad choices he had made. Grant’s uncle, Cephus Johnson, said that on Christmas Day 2008, seven days before his death, Grant opened up about his life: “It was clear he was more in the mode of settling down,” Johnson said. He also became a father as a young man - his daughter Tatiana was 4 when he was killed - and planned to marry the mother of his child. He got into a fair bit of trouble, serving jail time for crimes, including dealing the party drug ecstasy. Loved ones described him as a loyal friend and doting father. ![]() Grant worked at KFC, a medicine-delivery service and Farmer Joe’s Marketplace in Oakland, but wanted to become a barber. She raised him without the help of his father, who is serving a life sentence for murder. He grew up in Hayward, the son of a United Parcel Service supervisor, Wanda Johnson. Yoshi James / Courtesy Johnson familyĪs The Chronicle wrote in 2010, Oscar Grant III became a symbol in death, but in life he was a 22-year-old retail worker and young father. Grant was shot and killed by a BART police officer on January 1, 2009. Who was Oscar Grant? Undated image of Oscar Grant with his mother, Wanda Johnson (right), and sister, Chantay Moore (center). And they may not understand that some of the central facts of the case remain in dispute even today. What people may not know is how many lives changed as a result of that single gunshot. The officer says he meant to shock the victim with a Taser, not shoot him. Most everybody knows the outlines - a white officer fires a pistol into the back of an unarmed black man who has been pulled off a train as fellow passengers wield phones and digital cameras to capture the scene, spurring mass protest and a murder trial. Yet it can be easy to forget exactly what happened on that Oakland train platform in the early hours of New Year’s Day 2009. The shooting of Grant still ricochets: It touched off a national conversation about racism and police violence and initiated a form of stark, instantaneous documentary in which witnesses capture use-of-force incidents on cell phones and post the footage to YouTube and social media. ![]() Ten years after BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle killed Oscar Grant, and six years after the shooting was depicted in the film “ Fruitvale Station,” the incident is recalled by many observers as the most seismic moment for police accountability since the 1991 beating of Rodney King, which also was caught on video. (Bottom right) Mehserle looks up moments after discharging his weapon. (Bottom left) Mehserle holds his gun after shooting Grant. (Top right) Mehserle and another officer place Grant on his stomach. (Top left) BART police officers talk to Oscar Grant as he sits against the wall at the Fruitvale station platform. Comments This composite image, made from a cell phone video released by attorney John Burris, shows the moments before and immediately after Johannes Mehserle shot Oscar Grant on the Fruitvale BART station platform on Jan.
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