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Civil rights lawyer John Burris has earned millions of dollars over the past 30 years by handling hundreds of police brutality suits. He was recently hired by the family of Oscar Grant, a 22 year-old black man who was shot to death by a white police officer as he lay face down on a Bay Area Rapid Transit Platform on New Year’s Day.BART officer Johannes Mehserle is being charged with murder after shooting Grant once in the back.
Burris says that this case is one of the most unsettling cases he has been a part of. There have been a number of occasionally-violent demonstrations in the Bay Area regarding the death.
Burris claims to take around 50 police brutatlity cases every year. In 2006, he helped acquire $1.3 in settlements from the city of Oakland after Iraqi war protesters accused police of using excessive force to disassemble a particularly rough protest.
Burris won $10.9 million from Oakland in a settlement for the infamous “riders” case in which police supposedly arrested and planted evidence on 119 innocent suspects. This case is still the city’s largest settlement.
“Every case begets another case,” Burris said.
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