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After her work getting trial moved, Tammerlin Drummond attacks Oscar Grant's friends

by got outrage?
Tammerlin Drummond is worse than Chip Johnson (http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/10/02/18624196.php) when it comes to betraying African Americans in Oakland, just she doesn't have as big of a platform as Chip does with the Chronicle. You see, to Tammerlin and Chip, people who call out police crimes are crazy, and only those who blindly back the badge are sensible, upstanding citizens. If Oakland averages a half dozen or so unarmed African Americans killed by police every year, and police in California have killed nearly one thousand people in the last ten years, almost all non-white, so be it, according to these two writers. People of color who get killed by police all must have deserved it somehow. Perhaps those abused and killed by police cursed on a public train, for instance.
tammerlindrummondloveswhitecops_1.jpg
Way back in January, when people across the Bay Area were shocked an outraged that BART police had shot and killed an unarmed passenger, the vast majority of whom never protested, Tammerlin was forward thinking enough to worry about whether Mehserle could get a fair trial: "How can you possibly have a free and fair trial when people are swinging from lamp posts outside the courthouse, ranting about killer cops and threatening to take matters into their own hands if Mehserle is not convicted of murder? What sane potential juror wouldn't be terrified at the mere prospect of having to walk past that every day? Heck, if I were summoned, I'd be tempted to fake crazy to get out of serving on that jury." Cute, huh? She wrote that for the Oakland Tribune and it was quoted in Mehserle's racist motion to change venue and again in the judges decision to move the trial. If Mehserle's trial gets sent to a majority white country and he ends up walking, we can all thank Tammerlin for her special contribution.

Not missing a beat after she helped to win the change of venue, Tammerlin offends anyone who cares about justice with her latest piece, "Oscar Grant's friends' lawsuit nothing but a money grab." Completely missing the point that one of the main reasons civil suits are brought is to correct negligent policies and behavior, Tammerlin says she sees "no reason why they should be entitled to a big payday" because what happened to them -- the punches, the hair pulling, the tasers in their faces, being detained for hours with no charges ever filed, their friend killed in front of their eyes -- was essentially their own fault. Yeah, she says the cops messed up some too, but that's not the focus of the article (nor the focus of any of her articles). It's all about Oscar Grant's friends being greedy and undeserving of any compensation for their trauma and loss.

Where is Tammerlin's big interest in due process now, waiting until the facts in the case come out, when it comes to the civil suit?!? Why the double standard?

If you feel like getting pissed, follow the link below and read her attack on Oscar Grant's friends, an attack that reads like it's something you'd find in the racist SF Chronicle comments section any time the topic is police and African Americans. If you don't want to read it, you'll probably be better off.
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