By Madison Pauly, Mother Jones, October 14, 2021
Early on a Saturday morning in June 2015, a passerby notices a silver BMW stopped at an off-ramp in Oakland, California. The car’s turn signal is on, and the motor is running, but it doesn’t move as the traffic light cycles. Through the tinted windows, the driver appears passed out in the front seat. So the bystander calls 911 to report a medical emergency.
Soon, armed police officers swarm the scene. If they are concerned the driver might need a doctor, another fear comes first: There’s a gun in the front seat. As the clock ticks, this fact prevents them from getting the man—who is Black—to an ambulance. Instead, they run their sirens in useless attempts to rouse him and put spike strips under his tires. “This is the Oakland Police Department,” a PA system blasts. “Get your hands up.” An hour passes. The driver remains unresponsive.
That morning, the man in the car is Demouria Hogg, a 30-year-old father of three. While farmers market vendors arrange their stalls with lettuce and strawberries down the block, officers shoot out Hogg’s taillight with bean bag rounds and use a metal hook to smash his passenger-side window. This last attempt may have awoken Hogg; officers’ recollections are murky. But what happens next is captured on bodycam footage: A phalanx of cops rushes the car, shouting commands at Hogg and breaking the driver’s side glass. A rookie officer will later claim that as the window shatters, she sees Hogg move his hand toward the passenger seat, where she knows there is a gun. She puts a bullet in his chest, killing him.
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