The Franklin Reporter & Advocate Eight Villages, One Community
The Rutgers University chapter of Black Lives Matter Aug. 9 launched an online petition demanding that the names of the officers involved in the April 9 Diahlo Grant shooting be made public.
“Black Lives Matter Rutgers and the Grant family demand that the Andrew Carey, the Middlesex County prosecutor, release the names of the officers,” reads the petition, which is on the Change.org web site.
The chapter on July 22 led a protest march from the site on Somerset Street where Grant was killed to the offices of the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office.
According to police and other sources, Grant, 27, was shot by a Franklin Township police officer after Grant allegedly opened fire on that officer and another officer after a short foot chase from Franklin into New Brunswick.
The officers had earlier stopped Grant, who was wanted on two warrants, while on patrol near Somerset and Home streets, according to police. When the officers approached Grant, authorities said, Grant ran across a ravine into New Brunswick, where officers momentarily lost him.
The officers heard Grant trying to climb a chain-link fence, a source said, where they confronted him. It was there, the source said, that Grant allegedly pulled a gun and fired a single shot at the Franklin officers, missing them. One of the officers then returned fire, hitting Grant several times, the source said.
From April 15, 2016: In Our Opinion: Prosecutor Carey, End The Silence
“In the four months since the shooting, the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s office, which is handling the investigation, has declined to release the details of the case to the family or to the public,” the petition reads. “Instead, they have put forth a narrative that Diahlo Grant was guilty, and that the shooting was justified.”
The petition also questions what evidence has been collected, including any footage from security cameras, witness statements, forensics evidence and Grant’s autopsy.
The petition also questions whether the Franklin officers involved “have prior history of police misconduct.”
“Police officers are charged with protecting the public and upholding the law,” the petition reads. “They are given powers that demand an extra layer of accountability for any and all misconduct. In addition, the prosecutors that we trust to punish lawbreakers should hold police officers to an even higher standard –for violating the trust that the community placed in their armed hands.”
As of 1 a.m. Aug. 10, the petition had 261 signatures, with a stated goal of 500.
