Race Riot in Oakland over Trial Outcome
Oakland, California blacks were angered over the jury trial that found a white police officer guilty of involuntary manslaughter instead of the murder verdict they though he deserved. The victim was a young black man. Stores were vandalized and looted during the rioting that followed the announcement of the verdict.
Black Congressman Barbara Lee (D-CA), who represents the Oakland district, doesn't like the jury verdict and says the criminal system needs to be reformed. She's working with the federal Department of Justice to review the case, which seems to portend that they could bring federal charges against the officer, putting him in double jeopardy. But some lawyers and judges insist that such tactics are not double jeopardy, although it plainly is. But calling it by another name makes it not so, and allows them to do what they want to do.
A local TV news program airs the videos taken New Year's Day 2009 of the young man being apprehended, the subsequent struggle between him and the police, and the fatal shot. This clip was posted to YouTube on January 5, 2009.
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