It's a few hours into New Year's Day 2009, and a transit cop stands over 22-year-old Oscar Grant and his friends in the aftermath of a fight on a commuter train. The cops are indelicate, impatient. The men struggle back. Grant, in handcuffs, is dumped onto his stomach. Suddenly, in the chaos, one of the cops fires his gun into Grant's back. The crowd wails at a needless and visceral homicide. The picture fades out. In real life, Grant's death—and the pale justice that followed, with the cop who shot him serving merely 11 months for manslaughter—sparked riots. But it's only then, when we know how Grant's story ends, that Fruitvale Station—a dramatized retelling of the day that preceded Grant's death—can finally begin. by Denis C. Theriault