Award winning film "Fruitvale Station" (Grand Jury Prize at 2013 Sundance Film Festival, Best First Film at 2013 Cannes Film Festival, and others) is about the true story of Oscar Grant, a 22-year-old Bay Area resident young man killed by Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) police officer Johannes Mehserle at the Fruitvale Station in Oakland, California.
Oscar had just resolved to turn over a new leaf, throwing away a bag of marijuana instead of making a last sale even though he had just lost his job. On advice from his mother, he took the train instead of driving to the city to welcome the new year. He ran into bad company, resulted in a punch-up, and rounded up by over enthusiastic police officers. Producer Ryan Coogler expressed his motivation to make a film about Grant's last day, "I wanted the audience to get to know this guy, to get attached, so that when the situation that happens to him happens, it’s not just like you read it in the paper, you know what I mean? When you know somebody as a human being, you know that life means something." He succeeded.
The riot that followed the "accidental death" brought about the firing of the officers involved, the general manager and chief of BART police were sacked. Officer Mehserle claimed he mistook his revolver for his Taser, but the jury found him guilty of involuntary manslaughter, and sentenced him to 2 years in a state penitentiary.
Several witnesses had recorded documentary evidence of the incident at the train station with their cameras and cell phones. There was no such footage to record the last minutes of another young man's life. To date, nobody knows exactly how Dinesh Raman was pummeled into unconsciousness by eight Changi prison guards. Or whether they knew him as a human being, not just another punching bag.
The shirking of accountability is system wide. The damaged cable that disrupted Circle Line operation on Wednesday night is blamed on a contractor when the power-cable replacement is an ongoing exercise initiated by Singapore Mass Rapid Transit (SMRT) in January this year. The same SMRT that is applying for a hike in train fare when it can't even keep it running on schedule. It looks like a Lt Col Lieutenant-General is doing no better than a DFS salesgirl. SMRT is not running into red ink, the net profit for three months ending September was $14.3 million on revenue of $296 million, not exactly small potatoes. Here's an idea for trimming operating costs: ship the expensive army gang out together with the 53 foreign workers being deported.
Tattler
*The author blogs at http://singaporedesk.blogspot.sg