The two sides had disagreed on what the jury signaled with its verdict. The defense said jurors showed they believed Mehserle’s Taser story when they rejected murder and voluntary manslaughter, both of which require an intent to kill.
SP ( I CAN SEE IT NOW THE COPS WILL BE SHOOTING PEOPLE AND SAYING IT WAS A MISTAKE AND IT WAS THE TASER THEY INTENDED TO USE TO SHOCK THEM TO DEATH WITH NOT THE GUN…..)
Prosecutors disagreed. They said jurors had found that Mehserle did not intend to kill Grant, but that he had meant to shoot him. The gun enhancement, prosecutors noted, required the panel to find that Mehserle had fired a gun on purpose.
Defense attorneys believe the jury misapplied the gun enhancement after it was poorly explained to them.
During trial, prosecutor David Stein said Mehserle had “lost all control” of his emotions before the shooting. The defense said he had made a mistake under pressure and cast blame on poor training at BART – particularly on the agency’s Taser training, which Mehserle received a month before the shooting – and on the character of Grant, who had spent time in prison.
Grant had been detained at about 2 a.m. that New Year’s Day, along with four friends, for fighting on a Dublin-Pleasanton train. Within minutes, Mehserle’s then-colleague on the BART force, Anthony Pirone, reported that Grant had resisted him and ordered his arrest. Stein argued that the arrest itself was unlawful because Grant had cooperated.
Mehserle then moved to handcuff Grant as he lay on his chest, but struggled to pull back the Hayward man’s right arm before standing up and pulling out his pistol.
Taking the stand near the end of the trial, Mehserle testified that he had decided to use his Taser because he saw Grant put his right hand in his pants pocket and believed he might be reaching for a gun.
Mehserle said he had accidentally pulled out his pistol and fired before realizing he had grabbed the wrong weapon.
Mehserle’s shooting of Grant was witnessed by scores of New Year’s revelers, several of whom recorded it on cell-phone cameras.
The trial was moved to Los Angeles in an effort to find impartial jurors. In the Bay Area, many community leaders, activists and others saw the shooting as a window into a larger problem of police officers abusing people of color with little accountability.
Today’s sentencing “will have a detrimental impact on the relationship between the police and the African American community,” said Burris, the Grant family attorney. “It only says there is no bridge here.”
The sentencing is not the final word on Grant’s death. The U.S. Justice Department has said that its civil rights division, along with the U.S. attorney’s office and the FBI, will investigate the shooting “to determine whether the evidence warrants federal prosecution.”
Pirone and his partner the night of the shooting, Marysol Domenici, were fired earlier this year by BART – Pirone for his actions on the train platform and Domenici for the way she reported the incident to investigators. Their appeals are pending.
SP (FOR THE WAY SHE REPORTED THE INCIDENT TO INVESTIGATORS … NOW LET’S CALL A LIE A LIE …. ALL COPS LIE. ONLY BECAUSE THIS WAS CAUGHT ON VIDEO and SOMEONE WAS KILLED WAS ANYTHING DONE ABOUT IT.
BART agreed in January to pay $1.5 million in a civil settlement to Grant’s daughter, Tatiana Grant. But Grant’s mother, along with several of his friends who were with him when he was shot, still have pending lawsuits that may go to trial.
Chronicle staff writer Kevin Fagan contributed to this report.
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