SAN FRANCISCO — A moving protest calling for the
disbanding of the BART police force after an officer shot and killed a
homeless man last week forced major delays and the closure of two
transit system stations during Monday evening rush hour.
After rowdy protests closed the Civic Center station,
BART passengers, along with protesters, headed down Market Street
toward the Powell Street station where a growing line of people were
stopped at the turnstiles for a time. Trains continued running in and
out of the station as the protesters headed toward 16th Street station.
By 6:30 p.m., passengers were being allowed to leave the Civic Center
station, but not enter, and the 16th Street station was closed.
Organizers had said they would try to slow service
during the evening rush hour to protest the fatal shooting at the Civic
Center station.
“It’s almost been an hour (wait). I’m trying to get
home,” said one passenger, Rasheda Broussard of San Francisco, at the
Powell Street faregate. “I don’t understand why they let the protesters
get on the trains.”
Josue Gonzalez, coming from San Francisco Art
Institute to take BART’s Fremont line on his way home to San Jose, said
he didn’t mind the delay, “considering the cause.” “I’m just going to
wait,” he said.
Earlier, at the Civic Center station, BART volunteers
pulled one protester back to the station platform as he tried to climb
on top of the car. Uniformed BART police officers then took up positions
at the front of the platform, allowing the doors to close, and the
train moved out of the station. Another train did not stop at the
station as police took up positions and informed protesters that their
assembly was unlawful.
Protesters passed out fliers to BART passengers,
explaining that their group — No Justice, No BART — is asking the BART
Board of Directors to shut down the BART police department and fire the
officers involved in the July 3 shooting of Charles B. Hill, a
45-year-old transient who BART officials say was carrying a liquor
bottle and a knife on the Civic Center platform.
The protest group formed following the shooting of
22-year-old Hayward resident Oscar Grant III on the Fruitvale BART
platform on Jan. 1, 2009, by former BART officer Johannes Mehserle.
Mehserle was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and was recently
released after serving 11 months of a two-year sentence.
BART said Monday that its new police auditor is
monitoring the agency’s police investigation into the fatal shooting at
the Civic Center station, and will issue an independent opinion whether
deadly force was justified.
“I will issue a separate report on what was done
right, and what was done wrong,” Mark Smith, the new police auditor,
said in a news conference at BART headquarters in Oakland.
Smith, who joined BART three weeks ago, said it’s too
early to speculate when he will finish the report and what it might
say. He will provide his report to BART’s new civilian review committee.
BART Director Lynette Sweet of San Francisco said the
train system created the auditor post and civilian review board to
improve transparency that was lacking after the Grant shooting.
“We are assuring the public that after the 2009
incident, we could never do what we did, which is to not be forthcoming
with information,” Sweet said.
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(c) 2011, The Oakland Tribune (Oakland, Calif.).
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