Social Justice

In the early hours of New Year’s Day a 22-year-old male was shot and killed by a BART police officer. It’s especially disturbing that multiple people captured the entire incident on video and it appears that the shooting was completely unnecessary. With little progress in the investigation and the police officer resigning from the force instead of meeting with investigators, protesters took to the streets last night.

At around eight o’clock we flipped on the news and they were giving an update on the situation, we noticed that everything was happening just a few blocks away from our apartment. A few minutes later there were fire engines, and cop cars streaming down our street and we could hear people shouting and at least four or five helicopters hovered above downtown for the majority of the night. In all, several dumpsters were lit on fire, storefronts smashed, cars damaged and over 100 protesters eventually arrested.

As I biked to work this morning I rode over more than a little shattered glass, there were still several helicopters in the area and there appeared to be more trash in the street than normal.

There was a quote that struck me in a CNN.com article from an anonymous woman who said: "We live a life of fear, and we want them to be afraid tonight."

Social justice is one of the four tenets of JVC, and it’s clear that many in the Oakland community do not feel that all groups are receiving fair and impartial treatment. It’s also a reminder of how large the schism still is between the police and many urban communities. Working at St. Vincent de Paul it’s easy to see that progress needs to be made in a myriad of areas in Oakland, but for those who don’t see the problems on a daily basis it’s easy to ignore. However, when one incident, a horrific one mind you, is enough to cause the type of chaos that was seen last night, it’s tough for anyone to turn a blind eye.