San Francisco Blog

The deep-thinkers at Indybay.org are announcing a party. All of San Francisco is invited -- and, if things get out of hand, all of San Francisco will pay.

The violence and unrest surrounding the shooting death of Oscar Grant by a BART police officer may be heading West. Here's a post regarding a "demonstration" scheduled for tonight, reprinted in its entirety:

[Last week], the streets of Oakland came alive.

This is bigger than Oakland, however. The relationship of the police officer and the civilian is perverse: an unelected authority who has the unencumbered power of life and death over a population.

Last month San Francisco saw a confrontational solidarity action against the police murder of a young man on the other side of the world, yet there has been nothing against the police murder of a young man on the other side of the bay.

There will be a demonstration against the police murder of Oscar Grant on Monday, January 12 at 5pm at the Civic Center BART station.

The kids in Oakland know how to party. Let's show them they are not alone.

Where to start? Those who remember the church-going Grant recall him as a loving, earnest man -- so does it make sense that those to whom Grant is only a symbol, a blurry image on a graphic video, should "avenge" his death by burning public property and trashing Mom 'n' Pop shops?

Does it make sense that those protesting police violence should engage in behavior that necessitates and even justifies it? Finally, Oakland recorded 124 homicides in 2008 -- where's the righteous indignation about that? It seems police officers do not have a monopoly on the use of deadly force in our neighboring city (or our own).

Sgt. Lyn Tomioka, a San Francisco Police Department public information officer, told me that the department would "have a sufficient number of officers to respond to incidents on the scene." That's probably just what the "demonstrators" are hoping for.