Archiving accounts of police use of force
This is Linda Grant’s side of the story: She was hogtied by Oakland police officers in 1996 for simply walking down the street in East Oakland.
She tried to defend herself after officers tackled her and before they placed her in a controversial restraint that fastens a person’s hands and feet together while they’re on their stomach.
“That was the most embarrassing, insulting thing that ever happened to me,” Grant, 51, said. “Where was I going? They were already on top of me.”
The police, according to Grant, told her they saw her selling marijuana. Grant, who is black, said she was wrongfully arrested and convicted.
In a text message, I asked Grant whether she’d filed a claim for excessive use of force against the police officers.
“LOL a claim?” Grant, now a cannabis entrepreneur in Oakland’s equity program, responded. “I didn’t. What’s the use.”
Like so many others who say they’ve been victims of excessive force, Grant thought what happened to her didn’t matter. It does now. In November, the Oakland Police Commission voted to contract Raheem AI, a nonprofit that compiles accounts of police interactions. Raheem’s archive already includes Grant’s story — and thousands of others.
Brandon Anderson, the CEO, launched Raheem in 2017. It’s named in honor of Anderson’s partner, who was fatally shot by police in Oklahoma in 2007 while on his way home from work. According to Anderson, who didn’t want me to reveal Raheem’s full name out of respect for
A man shot his exgirlfriend and her male friend after ramming his car into the back of her parked vehicle outside a Moraga Starbucks on Sunday night, a police official said.
The suspected gunman, who was not identified, ran from the strip mall to a Saint Mary’s College extension building a few hundred yards away, where police found him with a gunshot wound and a handgun near his body. It’s unclear how he was shot, Moraga Police Chief Jon King said.
“The shooting was domesticrelated involving an exboyfriend,” King said in the parking lot of Rheem Shopping Center, near the Starbucks. “He shot two victims in the front car.”
A blue sedan with its engine running and doors open was against the rear bumper of the victims’ car with open doors and a shattered window as investigators combed the scene for evidence.
The suspect was in custody, and his gun was recovered, said King, adding that there was no threat to the public.
The condition of the victims was not immediately clear, King said, but at least one did not have lifethreatening injuries. The suspect’s condition was unknown late Sunday.
The man rammed the back of the parked car around 7:30 p.m., exited the vehicle and shot both victims in the car, King said.
Across Rheem Boulevard, paramedics treated the suspect, whose clothes were stained with blood, at the side of a Saint Mary’s College building.
“He suffered a gunshot wound also, and we’re investigating that,” King said.
Terri Bessette, a Taco Bell employee, was taking a break on the restaurant patio when she saw a man fire two shots at two people in the parking lot about 100 feet away. She ran inside and watched as the gunman ran past the restaurant carrying a handgun.
“Oh yeah, I was freaked out,” she said. “I bolted right inside the building.”