Actions speak louder than words.
First things first. BART needs a reality check. The reality is that you have done nothing to instill confidence in the public. You have done nothing to secure justice for Oscar Grant. We were here a month ago. We were angry then. Today, we're furious, because we expected action from BART and all we got was a bunch of worthless words.
What has BART done?
Did you fire Mehserle? Or did he quit on his own?
Did your so-called official, so-called investigation, result in Mehserle's murder charge? Or did the people have to mobilize to win that small measure of justice?
Do we need your 100,000 dollar investigation to know that Officer Pirone brutally attacked Oscar Grant and then held him down as he was murdered?
Do we need an investigation to tell that the extralegal arrest of witnesses to Oscar Grants murder was a violation of their civil rights?
Do we need an investigation to tell us that those BART officers were breaking the law and covering up a murder when they confiscated cameras and cell phones from witnesses?
Do we need an investigation to know that Chief Gee and Dorothy Dugger had evidence of all of this from day 1, yet tried to cover up the criminal misconduct of the BART police.
Does BART need an investigation to do what your bosses - THE PUBLIC - demands of you and fire these people for screwing up this bad?
These questions aren't hard questions to answer, not to a reasonable person.
So its not exaggeration to say that getting justice from BART is like squeezing blood from a stone.
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But we came here with a demand for justice.
Justice means, first of all, that you going to take care of some housekeeping. And you are going to take care of it NOW. Fire Police Chief Gary Gee and his boss, Dorothy Dugger. Fire Officer Tony Pirone and the other cops that were on that platform and anyone else who was involved in covering the shooting up. Fire them immediately, and press charges against Pirone and press charges against Chief Gee and anyone else covering this up..
Justice also means that you make some changes to make sure this doesn't happen again. First off, you are going to implement and fund economic development and youth programs so you can repair your relationships with communities of color. We shouldn't need to tell you that you are on some weak footing right now. Second, you are going to abolish these BART police. They've got a history of murder and cover-ups, and your promise of oversight rings hollow.
These longer term demands aren't going to happen overnight. So if you wanna investigate something, investigate how to meet our demands. Investigate the fact that nobody voted for you because you were qualified to oversee a police force. Investigate the history of BART police brutality. Investigate how to be a good neighbor to our communities.
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So what makes our demands for justice a demand? What makes them demands is that we are not asking you, we are telling you. And this is where you sit up and pay attention, where we give you some information you'll need to know in the coming months.
I am here, specifically, on behalf of an organizing committee called NO JUSTICE NO BART.
NO JUSTICE NO BART is here to threaten you. We aren't here to threaten you with violence, ok, we're not professional thugs like your BART police. We are here to threaten you with reality. So listen up:
NO JUSTICE NO BART doesn't believe your promises. It's been a month and you've passed up every chance you've had to do the right thing. And while City Hall over there was freaking out about our protests (and we cost them almost a million dollars so far) while Dellums and OPD were in the hotseat BART sat back to let them carry the burden. You didn't have to deal with the disruptions, since they weren't happening on your turf.
So NO JUSTICE NO BART is here to put on notice. WE ARE BRINGING THE PROTEST, THE DISRUPTION, ALL OF THAT, we are bringing it to you. Bringing it onto your turf, into the BART, into the stations, onto the trains.
NO JUSTICE NO BART is a group of organizers and activists with experience in planning direct action campaigns. The longer you refuse do the right thing, the further we will escalate our campaign of disruption. We are providing the Board with a version of a flyer that is already scheduled for distribution to the public. Contact information is on it. I'm sure we will be in touch.
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