Salvation Is A Pop Song

This is perhaps the largest scale and most publicly documented blatant abusive of power by law enforcement that America has ever seen. Mehserle is the first California police officer in decades to face murder charges for an on-duty incident. However, the "Oakland Riots" that have occured pale in comparison to the LA riots after the Rodney King beatings despite Grant's murder being clearly a larger and more tragic abusive of power. Below is a video of some of the riots. 

Perhaps it is simply that racial tensions in America are more at ease- Obama is to be inaugurated just a few weeks after Grant's murder- or perhaps its technology that is responsible for keeping the Bay Area at peace. There has been a tremendous amount of action by citizens in the Bay Area and the world via the web. In this journalistic video "Oakland Riots" a user by the name of panchito captures the feelings of people on the streets after the riots. In the below video a rally has been formed and  the leader claims "Our phones are our Weapons," what she means is that she is steering people towards CAPEOAKLAND, a Twitter group dedicated to keeping protesters organized and connected to what is happening. 

When an injustice occurs and people feel powerless they get angry, when people get angry and connect with other angry people violence occurs. Before the age of the internet information flowed slowly and came from top down sources (governments, newspapers, and television) which acted as amplifiers to the emotions and actions of the collective people but not thanks to technology we as a populous can now mobilize, idea share and communicate at incredible speeds and reach vast audiences- this is tremendous and will lead us to an incredibly bright new future. Let's turn tragedies like Oscar Grant into triumphs, let's do as Obama said in his inaugural address and user our "imagination joined with a common purpose" to shape the world to become a better place where we don't need armed cops to begin with.