Mention the name John Burris and police departments across the country... shudder.
For five decades, most of them here in the Bay Area, he has been the proud guardian of civil rights and the first phone call for those claiming police brutality or misconduct. The cases he's worked on almost always find a national stage: Rodney King, Oscar Grant, even Tupac Shakur.
So it's not surprising that this attorney, the one many call the Johnnie Cochran of Oakland, has some thoughts on the police shooting of an unarmed teen in Ferguson, Missouri and the ongoing unrest.
"The reaction by the community was not surprising to me, having been involved in the Oscar Grant case, and I know how communities can react if they’re given a certain set of facts. In this case, you had facts that a young man was unarmed, 18 years old, and he had his hands up," Burris told The Mix. "That will cause any community to go in an uproar."
You can watch the full interview in the video player at the top of this page.
