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by the Oscar Grant Committee
At 9:30 p.m. Saturday night, July 23, 2016, an Oakland Police Department (OPD) sergeant, Nadia Clark, was in a car accident on the 1900 block of 73rd Avenue, near Weld Avenue. Someone fired a single round at the OPD sports utility vehicle. The shot hit the OPD SUV but not the OPD sergeant.
Relations between the OPD and the community are and have been tense for a long time. The fact that the OPD is still, after 13 years, being monitored by the federal government, with the sad reality of the current sex scandal and the slaughter of the police in Dallas and Baton Rouge – this translates into a climate of low morale, paranoia and dysfunction.
All this is made clear by the overreaction of the OPD in its unjustified arrest of Omar Shakir Sunday morning. First off, the OPD admitted on television news that they had no suspect and no motive for the shooting.
By 11:00 p.m., the OPD announced on their scanner that they were preparing to raid 7833 Plymouth Ave., the home of Omar Shakir and his family. The house is inhabited by his mom, Faheemah Kayaba, his sister, Hadiyah Shakir, with her two children, 5 and 11, and two brothers. There are also two tenants.
At 5:30 a.m., the OPD carried out their militarized raid on Omar Shakir’s residence. They started off with flash-bang grenades at the front and back doors of the house, after tearing down a section of the neighbor’s fence, and positioned snipers on the neighbors’ roofs and other locations.
Omar answered the door, at which point he was arrested. The OPD proceeded to empty the house of people. They then searched the house.
The OPD search of the property was clearly illegal. The OPD entered the property at about 5:30 a.m. The warrant they later produced read 7:07 a.m.
The family and the community want to know: On what evidence did OPD decide to pursue Omar as a suspect?
Omar works as a security guard.
He has not spent time in jail for the last 10 years.
When Omar’s sister Hadiyah viewed the video of the alleged shooter shown to her by OPD, she reportedly told them the man in the video was not her brother because:
- The alleged shooter in the video is taller than Omar. Omar and his sister Hadiyah are roughly the same height, 5 feet 6 inches.
- The alleged shooter’s skin is darker than Omar’s skin.
- Omar’s hair is much longer than the alleged shooter’s. Omar’s hair has grown well below his “waist.”
Clearly they have the wrong man. Justice needs to be served for Omar, his family and the community.
https://youtu.be/CY_-M9eyeK8
Contact the Oscar Grant Committee at oscargrantcommittee.ogc@gmail.com.
