Oscar Grant’s shooting was one of the early modern incidents that gained public outcry toward police. That led to the charge being downgraded to “involuntary manslaughter,” which led to two years of sentencing in prison. (Image credit: (Weinstein)ΩΩ) What Happened After The Shooting And Fruitvale’s Connections To ‘Black Lives Matter’Īs noted briefly at the end of the film, Officer Johannes Mehserle, the man who shot Oscar Grant, was initially charged with first-degree murder before he testified in court that he meant to pull out his taser instead of his gun. Karina Vargas was one eyewitness who was just 10 feet from the incident, and said he had his hands voluntarily behind his back as they pulled him down and he told them to “please not shoot him” and he was “cooperating” before he was shot then and there and died at the hospital hours later. It’s true Oscar’s girlfriend went downstairs to wait for him and his friends when the scuffle between them and the police started. As the official court document discloses, one witness called the fight that broke out between Grant and his former inmate that led to the police’s presence was “nothing more than a wrestling match” and the fight was resolved on the scene. None of the seven officers present at the scene reported an officer involved shooting when they radioed in. Unfortunately, the BART police did not make much of an effort to follow up with those present at the scene and get full accounts. Coogler decided to closely depict Oscar’s final moments as captured by various phone cameras at the scene and eyewitness accounts. In an eerie detail, Fruitvale Station’s climax was filmed on the exact platform in the Bay Area where Oscar was slain over four days. (Image credit: (Weinstein)) Fruitvale Station Was Filmed On The Same Platform Of Oscar’s Death There were some creative liberties done in order to fill the events of the day – such as the pitbull scene did not specifically happen but Coogler has compared the dog breed to the way Black people are treated in media. Grant actually did stop and get crab for his mom too, the specific interaction with a customer may not have happened on that exact day, but Oscar’s real grandma said Oscar had called her once on the behalf of a customer to get her “secret recipe.” It’s true that Oscar’s mom suggested he take the train and he’d planned to take his daughter Tatiana to Chuck E. The detail about New Year’s Day also being his mother’s birthday was also completely true. In real life, he had planned to attend barber school to get his life back on track and the couple had talked about getting a new place outside of Oakland just two days prior to his murder. In Fruitvale Station, he is given a business card by a man during his New Year’s celebration to signal a coming shift in his career. Sophina Mesa, his girlfriend and mother to his four-year-old daughter Tatiana confirmed that Oscar had been planning to do more honest work if he had lived, as illustrated in the film.
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