More than a decade ago, another young Black man was killed after a Taser-gun mix-up.
This was the fatal shooting of Oscar Grant at Fruitvale Station.
This was the fatal shooting of Oscar Grant at Fruitvale Station.
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00:00Never did I expect to get a call in the morning to say that my son had been shot.
00:30I wake up every night thinking, what if I wouldn't have asked my son and instructed
00:46my son to get on board.
00:55Fortunately for justice sake, it happened in 2009, in the age of advanced technology
01:01and communications, where the entire world was able to see first-hand.
01:05I didn't know the young man myself, but how this crime happened, it could be me, it could
01:17be my brother, it could be my sister, it could be any of us out here.
01:27The words that he said still rings in my ear, and that is, you shot me, I have a four-year-old
01:33daughter, you shot me.
01:38There's no way to call that involuntary manslaughter, because there was no threat to the officer.
01:49And I feel like even if he was going to tase this person, he could have tased them in the
01:53leg, could have tased them in the arm.
01:55He was aiming for like the back of the kid's head.
02:06I remember 2009, sitting in my apartment on the computer, and being on Facebook and
02:11seeing this video pop up on my wall, and watching it, and watching it again, and watching it
02:15again, and just feeling a different emotion every time, upset, frustrated, angry, helpless.
02:33My son's head was smashed against the wall, and he was kicked, and he was punched, and
02:43the officer, Peroni, still walks around free today.
03:00This reminds me of Oscar Grant, at the train, at the Fruitvale in Oakland, California, where
03:24he was told to lay on his chest with his hands behind his back in the prone position
03:30as the officer accidentally mistaken to shoot him with a gun instead of tasing him.
03:38There was no need to even tase him.
03:43Dante Wright, just like his last name Wright, he should still be here.
03:49It's a time for change, and that time is now.