Cop Propaganda Surrounding Mehserle Protest

There’s a pretty ridiculous propaganda piece in the Tribune today:

“City police on Wednesday began meeting with representatives of other law enforcement agencies to prepare for the response to the scheduled Nov. 5 sentencing of former BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle.

Their goal: Prevent a repeat of the violence that followed Mehserle’s July 8 involuntary manslaughter conviction in the Jan. 1, 2009, shooting death of Hayward resident Oscar Grant III.”

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The only voices in the piece are those of cops and city officials, all of whom describe the actions of OPD after the Mehserle conviction as “successful” and “appropriate.” They also describe protesters as “violent” – you know cause they’re the one who showed up with the guns and batons and locked people in cages and shoot unarmed people routinely… – and repeat the MYTH that the protests were carried out by out-of-town white anarchists. Not to diminish the role of out-of-town white anarchists – many of whom I’m sure are great people and did play an important role in the protests – but to undermine the fact that this confrontation was part of a deeply felt rage on the part of community members and that it is the expression of a rift between poor black youth and their bourgeois “leaders” is stupid. Anyway, the cops are preparing for another showdown…