Through Mehserle chaos, Oakland will endure

The tension in Oakland is palpable as the city awaits a verdict in the trial of Johannes Mehserle, a former BART police officer charged with murdering passenger Oscar Grant in January 2009.

City officials and business leaders have issued rote statements pleading for public calm in the event of an unpopular verdict. And they run the gamut from righteous to the well-intentioned to the downright ridiculous.

This much we already know: What may appear as a reasonable verdict in one community may look like a travesty of justice in another.

Youth Uprising, a city-funded youth center, has produced a video on YouTube warning that "Violence is not Justice."

I have an even better idea. Responsible parents who want to encourage peaceful protest among their kids should either attend with them or make sure they keep their kids at home. And to adults, professional protesters and anarchist organizations, I issue this simple query: Do you know what happens to most people who come to Oakland looking for trouble? They often find it.

Mayor Ron Dellums, who was drowned out by protesters outside Oakland City Hall during last year's demonstrations, has also called for civil behavior. The most pointed statement was issued by Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson and a host of local clergy and other officials who called for calm, promised to challenge any unsatisfactory verdict, and offered their own judgment of Mehserle's actions.

"Representatives of our organization have been monitoring this case since Oscar Grant was senselessly murdered by Johannes Mehserle on January 1, 2009," the statement read in part.

I asked Carson, if in retrospect, he thought including a personal judgment in a community letter had as much potential to foment public anger as put a lid on things.

"I gave a lot of thought to this before it was sent out and I signed it," Carson said in a phone interview Thursday. "I have a responsibility to the general public to ensure there is calm in the city and to protect businesses and people who had nothing to do with this but would have to suffer because of it."

I see no public benefit by distributing a letter that pre-supposes a murder conviction as a just outcome and raises the stakes in an emotionally charged criminal trial that has already spurred violence. This situation is neither the time nor place for personal opinions of any elected officials or religious leaders that convey any message other than promoting a peaceful response.

In a departure from all the concerns about doomsday scenarios came a message from Greg McConnell, president of the Jobs & Housing Coalition, an organization of about 40 Oakland business owners.

"Even if the dire forecasts of violence prove true, will that be the story of Oakland?" McConnell wrote.

"No, that will be the story of a small segment of our population who commit crimes and engage in unlawful conduct whether it is hot or cold, sunny or raining, night or day, with or without an excuse or justification. If violence occurs, like before, it will also be the story of outside anarchists from our neighboring professional protester incubation cities. And again, our police department and 99.95% of the residents and business people of this city will handle it because that is what we do."

McConnell is right about that. Oakland has withstood a previous violent demonstration connected with this case and witnessed heart-wrenching street-beatings and the heartbreaking loss of four police officers gunned down in the line of duty. We have a do-nothing mayor and are so broke we can't afford to pay our own police officers.

And you know what? We're gonna survive that, too. To Oakland critics who predict the demise of our city: The residents of this city can take whatever the world dishes out.

This is Oakland, and we're stronger than all of that.

Chip Johnson's column appears in The Chronicle on Tuesday and Friday. E-mail him at chjohnson@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page C - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle