The OPD has yet more blood on their hands — and another potentially disastrous PR problem to contend with — as news arrives today that the victim in an officer-involved shooting in East Oakland on Sunday is a cousin of the late, martyred Oscar Grant. As ABC 7 reports, not only does the victim, Tony Jones, claim he was unarmed at the time of the shooting, but he and his family say he is related to Grant, who was a resident of Hayward.

Jones, 24, was shot in the back while running from police in East Oakland, after he was seen getting out of a car that was being tailed by police and identified as possibly having been involved in a robbery earlier in the day. Though the OPD insists Jones was armed, they admit that he did not aim or fire at officers, and the officer who shot him has already been put on leave.

Jones' mother Bertrina Works-Grant tells ABC 7 that Jones was seriously injured and was shot in the lower back. Furthermore, she relays Jones' version of events in which he did not know that there were cops in the car, and only took off running because they sped up and he feared for his life.


[ABC 7]