//
(06-28) 17:20 PDT — Overlooked in the court hearing that ended in former BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle being ordered tried for murder in the slaying of Oscar Grant was testimony about another officer’s explosive outburst just 30 seconds before Grant was shot.
One of the videos made by riders at the Fruitvale Station in Oakland early New Year’s Day caught Officer Tony Pirone standing over the prone Grant and yelling, “Bitch-ass n-.”
Pirone and his attorney say he was parroting an epithet that Grant first hurled at him – though Grant’s voice is not audible on the tape.
The sound-enhanced tape shows Pirone delivering a shoulder chop to Grant and bringing him to the ground. Pirone can be heard saying twice, “Bitch-ass n-, right?”
Prosecutors showed the tape in court on the last day of Mehserle’s preliminary hearing, but the headlines went to the judge’s decree hours later that there was enough evidence to send Mehserle to trial for murder.
Under questioning from Mehserle’s attorney Michael Rains, Pirone insisted it was Grant who had first “called me a bitch-ass n-.”
Asked if he had repeated the slur to Grant, Pirone testified: “I don’t remember, but it very well may have happened.”
“Is that something you would have initiated on your own, calling him names?” Rains asked.
“No, I don’t talk like that,” Pirone said.
Oakland attorney John Burris, who is representing Grant’s family in a lawsuit against BART, called Pirone’s words “shocking and disturbing.”
“Pirone was out of control,” Burris said, “assaulting Oscar Grant and taunting him with racial slurs, and none of the other officers seemed to put him in check.”
Pirone’s attorney, William Rapoport, dismissed Burris’ assertion – reiterating that Pirone, who is white, was simply reacting in surprise to being called the “N” word himself.
Mehserle, who is white, was not accused by prosecutors or Grant’s family of a racial motive in the shooting of Grant, a 22-year-old African American whom BART officers pulled off a train after receiving reports of an onboard fight.
A spokesman for the state Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training in Sacramento declined to weigh in on whether Pirone’s comments would be cause for discipline or even firing, citing an internal BART probe of the shooting.
Peter Keane, a Golden Gate University law professor and former San Francisco police commissioner, said that determining whether Pirone’s comments were grounds for discipline depends on whether he was intending to use a racial epithet or just echoing Grant in a “sense of incredulity.”
But without Grant’s voice on the tape, Keane said, “the burden of proof moves heavily to Pirone.”
The race is on: State Attorney General Jerry Brown bests San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom by 20 points in a new, two-way poll for next year’s Democratic gubernatorial contest.
The poll by JMM Research of 525 Democratic and decline-to-state voters is the first snapshot since Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced last week that he wasn’t running.
With Villaraigosa in the lineup, the numbers read:
— Brown, 33 percent.
— Newsom, 20 percent.
— Villaraigosa, 17 percent.
Take the L.A. mayor out, and it’s:
— Brown, 46 percent.
— Newsom, 26 percent.
Brown does best with the voters over 40, who tend to turn out in bigger numbers on election day. Newsom thrives with the younger crowd, which he hopes to turn out big time, a la Barack Obama.
Geographically, Brown beats Newsom everywhere but the Bay Area.
Whichever candidate they support, the one thing Democrats overwhelmingly agree on is the sad state of the state, with 73 percent saying California is headed in the wrong direction.
Budget bingo: Publicly, San Francisco’s budget battle is being pitched as a fight with Mayor Gavin Newsom, cops and firefighters on one side, and the Board of Supervisors and advocates of social programs on the other.
But behind the scenes, the fight is also between two major labor groups: the Service Employees International Union, which represents most of the city’s health and social workers, and the police and fire unions.
Service worker unions have helped elect a number of the supervisors. The police and firefighter unions are big backers of the mayor, and opposed many of the supervisors.
The first round went to the service workers when the supervisors voted to cut $82.9 million from the police, fire and sheriff’s departments and use it for health and social services.
But now, it’s dawning on everyone that the city will probably need even more money to keep everyone happy, which means going to the ballot in November with some kind of tax hike. And any kind of tax hike is going to need police and firefighter support to pass.
Which may explain why the service and firefighters unions have been meeting on the QT in the hopes of working out a compromise.
And if they do – City Hall will follow.
Banmiller bows: After taking a good, hard look at the numbers, business newscaster Brian Banmiller has decided to stay out of the race to replace outgoing East Bay Democratic Rep. Ellen Tauscher.
“They weren’t kidding around when they redistricted the 10th,” the Republican said of the district, which includes portions of Solano and Contra Costa counties. “They said they were going to make it safe for Democrats, and it is.”
EXTRA! Catch our blog at www.sfgate.com/matierandross.
Chronicle columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross appear Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays. Phil can be seen on the KPIX morning and evening news. He can also be heard on KCBS radio Monday through Friday at 7:50 a.m. and 5:50 p.m. Got a tip? Call (415) 777-8815, or e-mail matierandross@sfchronicle.com.
source: http://www.sfgate.com/columnists/matierandross/
Return to Davey D’s Hip Hop Corner
Gavin needs to contact as many all of the Obama ’08 team that are available. Biden is basically Hillary with a deep voice, and the Obama team knows just what to do. Gavin can’t just go into with speeches and hope that it resonates, like Angelides did. You’ve got to play politics and get a little dirty. God knows Jerry Brown will.
LOL. I said “Biden”… I meant Jerry Brown. Now why in the world would I get Joe Biden and Jerry Brown confused? LOL. Hmmmm.
ONE DAY……………..ONE DAY SOON …….WE GONNA RIDE ON THE DEVIL…………….
Far as Oscar Grant and that racist cop go…you guys have to see the comments at Insidebayarea.com (tribune’s website). It’s disgusting. There are a lot of racists hiding in the bay area, that’s for sure. It’s unbelievable.
http://www.ktvu.com/…
This version of the video shows the incident earlier. At 6 seconds into the tape Officer Baldy rises from an already prone and handcuffed person and walks to a standing Oscar Grant. Then at 10 seconds he hauls off and lands a textbook right cross directly to Oscars head. Pay particular attention to the comments in the crowd. The ones that stuck out to me particularly were “OH SHIT”, and “DAMMNNN” I’ve heard those said like that before, right after as we used to say in the day someone got stolen on. Oscar weebles and woobles, but he doesn’t quite go down. That is assault right there unless this is a world where cops CAN treat the youth as punching bags. From 10 seconds to 30 Oscar has his hands firmly in the air or by his side as he sits against the wall then our videographer tapes the floor and passengers until second 50. From there until second 1:14 Oscar seems to be pleading with the officer, he goes to his knees puts his hands up again an appears supplicant considering one minute before the officer he was speaking to clocked him in the jaw. 1:23 and things are heating up again. Baldy gestures to Mehserle who appears to step into Oscar and apply the cuffs as Oscar throws his hands behind his back. Notice Mehserle doesn’t have to force Oscar’s arms behind him he can’t wait to be handcuffed. Facedown to the concrete goes Oscar, and at 1:27 Baldy drops his knee on Oscar’s neck.
Let’s stop for a second, and imagine what that must feel like. Baldy isn’t a little guy, and he has his knee and his weight on this poor young mans neck while he is face down. The pain must be enormous, and I couldn’t imagine any sane person able to do anything but squirm let alone follow directions. Applying this hold I see as another incident of assault against a compliant suspect.
From 1:27 to 1:47 he does just that. He squirms like a person under 400 pounds of upset police officer as Baldy appears to give orders, and then it happens.
At all points in this video Baldy appeared to be the alpha dog. He did assault Oscar Grant at second 10 and a mere 1:30 seconds later his initial aggression led to his death. There should be a reckoning and considering the actions of Officer Baldy, and the fact they let Oscar lie on that platform while the officers on scene attempted to confiscate evidence in the form of the recordings taken by the passengers as opposed to treating Oscar for his wounds means in my opinion means the number of liable officers in this tragedy wont end at two.
I wrote that so no need to quote, at the time Pirone wasnt identified, now he is. He’s the one who calls us bitch assed nigg***
Obviously this white cop was trying to act black.
Thats not what he said.. his words were emulating Grants “Bitch Ass Nigga” totally different words completely. Its hillarious how people want to spin this whole thing into a race war. The word is so watered down at this point, what difference does it make.. I use it daily and feel nothing in regards to hate, just brotherly love.