Less than a week after potential jurors were asked if they could overlook race in the Oscar Grant murder trial, a jury has been selected.
Seven whites, four Hispanics, one East Indian and NO Blacks will determine if a former BART official intentionally killed Oscar Grant in cold blood.
Former Bay Area Rapid Transit official Johannes Mehserle is facing trial for the shooting death of the unarmed Black man after video surfaced showing him fatally shooting a restrained Grant at an Oakland train station New Years Day 2009.
Mehserle says he didn’t intentionally murder Grant and his attorneys claim that he meant to use his taser but fired his weapon by mistake.
The Associated Press reports that Jack Bryson of Oakland and his two sons Nigel and Jackie—who were with Grant when he was killed, left an L.A. court room in disgust after hearing that no Blacks were selected to hear the trial.
A disappointed Bryson tells the AP,
“This is like a slap in the face. This case came all the way to Los Angeles after the judge in Alameda County said they couldn’t get a fair and impartial jury there. This is the best you can do, and you did this in two days. We could’ve stayed back in Oakland for this.”
Cephus “Bobby” Johnson, Grant’s uncle, also tells the Associated Press that he was “extremely surprised” that no Blacks were selected considering the L.A. County area’s large Black population.
