CALIFORNIA BEAT STAFF REPORT

The BART Board of Directors once again discussed the New Year’s morning shooting incident of Oscar Grant by a transit agency police officer at a public meeting Thursday — this time with many members expressing concerns about a third party probe into the events that could potentially leave portions of the findings confidential.

And there are new vows from a community group formed in response to the killing of Oscar Grant that they will shut down the Fruitvale BART station during the evening rush hour on Thursday, March 5 if a list of demands calling for the termination of BART Police Chief Gary Gee and agency General Manager Dorothy Dugger.

An organizer for the group, No Justice No BART, said that they plan to hold a protest against the transit agency by closing the transit station — the site of the Jan. 1 shooting incident that left Grant, 22, of Hayward mortally wounded. Group members are frustrated by the fact that a list of demands they submitted — ranging from the terminations of Gee and Dugger, and criminal charges against a second BART police officer Tony Pirone who was seen punching Grant moments before he was shot to death — have not yet been met.

The nature of the station shut-down was not divulged publicly, but group protesters are confident that it can happen.

“I don’t think it’s necessarily public knowledge yet, but there’s a number of ways to shut down a BART,” George Ciccariello-Maher told SF Weekly.

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BART Police Chief Gary Gee told KGO-TV Thursday that they are prepared to staff extra officers at the station in preparation for the event, and Oakland Police Spokesperson Officer Jeffery Thomason told reporters that his department will also throw additional resources in the Fruitvale BART station area in case the protest spills over into city streets.

BART Board Directors met at BART headquarters in downtown Oakland Thursday morning to discuss more fallout from the incident — include concerns raised by Director Lynette Sweet that portions of an independent third-party investigation could potentially remain confidential because of laws that protect peace officers from being publicly identified.

Published reports indicated that Sweet was concerned that transparency — something the Board has vowed to institutute in the investigation process — could be in jeopardy if critical pieces of information were not divulged by Meyers Nave, the firm hired by BART to take over the internal affairs investigation into the shooting incident.

“The public wants to see transparency,” Sweet told the public.

And the Board received more angry public testimony from members of the public who are still upset by the Jan. 1 shooting incident — indicative of the fact that while the shooting of Grant is nearly two months old, community tensions still remain elevated.

Grant’s family plans to hold a gathering and march to Hayward City Hall at the Hayward BART station Friday at 4:30 p.m. to commemorate the slain man’s birthday and remember two other individuals shot and killed by BART Police Officers at the station. Grant would have turned 23.

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A BART Board of Directors meeting descending into chaos Thursday morning after protesters — angry over the transit agency’s handling of the New Year’s morning shooting and killing of Oscar Grant by one of their police officers – seized the event and demanded the resignation of top BART brass and the arrest of a second transit officer caught on videotape punching Grant minutes before he was killed.

Protesters and local elected and religious leaders packed the morning meeting at BART headquarters in Downtown Oakland to discuss the creation of a police review committee which would oversee complaints and misconduct, but the demonstrators quickly began voicing their anguish over the handling of the investigation process by the transit agency and called on the Board to fire Transit Police Chief Gary Gee and General Manager Dorothy Dugger.

At least one community member who attended the event also asked Board President Thomas Blalock to step down as well.

>>>>WATCH: KTVU and KGO-TV‘s coverage of Thursday’s chaotic BART Board meeting
>>>>RELATED STORY: The BART Public Relations Disaster | How Oscar Grant’s killing leaves an agency struggling with its public image

The protesters unfurled a large banner in front of the crowd, confronted Board members and one-by-one lambasted them for their reluctance to oust Gee and Dugger. The Board members responded by saying that laws prohibited them from committing to such requests.

But two Directors, Tom Radulovich and Lynette Sweet, have both publicly said that they would be in favor of ousting both Gee and Dugger if it were put up for a vote. Other Board members have said that they would not support such a move.

Protesters at the meeting said that they would continue the demonstrations until their requests were met.

“(We’re) here to put you on notice we’re bringing the protests and disruptions to you and your turf,” one protester told the Board. “That means into BART. That means into the station, the trains, and if need be, onto the tracks.”

BART Board Director Joel Keller was confronted by protesters after he suggested that more people were killed in Oakland than on BART trains. After that comment, he was approached by outraged demonstrators who chastised him for the statement. The lights also momentarily went out and the meeting was halted after BART Police feared that boiling tensions would lead to violence.

Keller told reporters that he did not feel threatened when approached by protesters. No violence was reported at the Board meeting, but at least one Board member told reporters that he was getting tired of the constant criticism that his organization has come under in response to the Grant slaying.

“I’m tried of the staff being a punching bag,” BART Board Director James Fang told the Oakland Tribune.

The chaotic scene at Thursday’s meeting is indicative of community anger that continues to fester in Oakland resulting from the BART shooting incident that has received worldwide attention when former BART police officer Johannes Mehserle, 27, shot and killed the unarmed passenger in front of hundreds of passengers – some videotaping the entire incident.

His attorney called the incident a mistake, and that Mehserle was reaching for his taser when he instead went for his service pistol. Mehserle is now facing homicide charges.

The second BART Police officer Tony Pirone was caught on videotape aired by television station KTVU-TV punching Grant two minutes before he was shot and killed. Protesters Thursday demanded that he face assault charges and be booted from the BART police force.

The transit agency has been struggling to mend relations with the community – repeatedly promising more accountability and attempts to restore confidence as it attempts to repair its tarnished image after the shooting incident, and after KTVU-TV forced BART to open a second internal affairs investigation into the Pirone punching incident.

But six weeks after the Jan. 1 killing of Grant, it appears that there is much more healing that needs to be accomplished with protesters vowing to disrupt BART service until their demands are met.

A preliminary hearing will take place at 2:00 p.m. in Alameda County Superior Court Friday to discuss the possible lifting of a gag order Judge Morris Jacobson placed on the case. Mehserle, who is out on $3 million bail, is not expected to appear at the hearing.

E-mail Tim Jue at californiabeat[at]gmail.com. Get the latest developments and complete BART Shooting coverage from the California Beat on our special page. Follow the California Beat on Twitter for the latest breaking news and updates on this story and many others.

BART officials announced Wednesday that an independent third-party law firm has been hired by the transit agency to conduct an internal investigation into the New Year’s morning events where a BART police officer killed an unarmed passenger on a station platform in front of hundreds of train passengers, some of them videotaping the entire incident.

The law firm, East Bay-based Meyers Nave, will be paid $150,000 to take over the transit agency’s probe of the highly publicized incident as it struggles to earn back public confidence after being slammed by angry community officials, elected officials and law enforcement experts for over a month.

The law firm will closely examine all the events that occurred on the morning of Jan.1 including the actions of other police officers who have been accused and videotaped punching Oscar Grant, 22, moments before he was killed by former officer Johannes Mehserle who faces murder charges but is now out on $3 million bail.

• RELATED STORY: The BART Public Relations Disaster | How Oscar Grant’s killing leaves an agency struggling with its public image

“The results of the criminal investigation will be delivered to a charging attorney in the District Attorney’s office to determine if any of the actions by the six police officers rises to the level of prosecutable conduct,” BART Board Member Joel Keller told KGO-TV.

The firm will look into the actions of BART Police officers on the Fruitvale Station platform that day — including their decision to take Grant and four other friends off of a Dublin-Pleasanton-bound BART train and detain them against a station wall.

The firm will also reinterview witnesses to the incident and produce a report in three months time, BART officials said. Portions of that report will be made public, but critical are recommendations on whether some or all officers on the platform on Jan. 1 should face disciplinary action — including termination.

BART has repeatedly come under fire for the use of excessive force in their response to a reported fight on-board a train that was being held at the East Oakland station. Officers made no arrests that night in relation to the fight they were responding to, but widely broadcast videotapes show individuals being hand-cuffed and threatened with tasers before and after Grant was killed.

Meanwhile, protest groups are expected to crowd a morning BART Board of Directors special meeting Thursday where transit agency officials are expected to take up the issue of the creation of an police oversight board that will look into incidents of police misconduct.

Currently, such allegations are handled by BART Police internal affairs investigators because no such review board exists in the BART organization.

Activists and community members have been vociferously calling on BART to make good on their repeated promises to enact a review board which would allow a non-police panel to look into officer-involved shootings and citizen complaints.

“We are at a critical juncture where we need to have more than just expressions of accountability. We need now to move forward and implement a meaningful structure of accountability,” Dereca Blackmon of the Coalition Against Police Executions told the Chronicle.

E-mail Tim Jue at californiabeat[at]gmail.com. Get the latest developments and complete BART Shooting coverage from the California Beat on our special page. Follow the California Beat on Twitter for the latest breaking news and updates on this story and many others.

Five of Oscar Grant’s friends who were with the BART Police shooting victim on the Fruitvale Station platform when he was shot to death by a transit agency police officer on New Year’s morning filed a $1.5 million claim against the transit district in Alameda County Superior Court Wednesday.

The claim accuses the BART Police officers that responded to a reported melee on-board an East Bay bound BART train of using excessive force, illegal detainment and civil rights violations. The five claimants, Nigel Bryson, Jackie Bryson, Michael Greer, Carlos Reyes and Fernando Anicete, are all long-time friends of Grant, according to legal documents filed by attorney John Burris Wednesday.

The claims state that several BART Police Officers on the platform that morning threatened to tase the five claimants in the face if they did not cooperate with their orders. The claim also states that police officer Tony Pirone, who is seen in home video footage slugging Grant in the face before he is shot, exacerbated tensions of train passengers and the detained claimants.

BART officers also allegedly threw Greer to the ground and caused a cut on his nose. The claim also accuses a BART Officer of “smashing” Anicete’s face into the ground after he expressed outrage at officers when Johannes Mehserle, the former BART officer who shot and killed Grant, fired the fatal shot into the victim’s back.

A BART spokesman declined to comment on the claim citing a policy which prohibits the agency from speaking publicly about pending litigation.

Burris also sent a letter to BART Police Chief Gary Gee asking him to investigate a “non-professional relationship” between two of the officers on the platform to see whether that may have played a role in the handling of the incident and the subsequent investigation.

Burris has also filed a $25 million wrongful death claim against the agency on behalf of Grant’s family. BART is given time to consider the claims, but if they do not respond to them, lawsuits can be filed against the transit agency seeking monetary damages.

OAKLAND, CALIF — No bus crash, no train collision, nor any transit shutdown that any American public transportation provider ever suffered resulted in as much public scorn and embarrassment that the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District has received in the wake of the Oscar Grant shooting incident.

Outrage at the transit agency has come from nearly everywhere: from city, county and state officials, to folks living halfway around the world who have viewed the shocking home videos of one of their transit police officers shooting an unarmed man in the back, killing him.

Almost immediately, people demanded to know why, but BART appeared to not have an answer.

A series of gaffes

Those home videos showing the graphic shooting incident and the resulting chaos that ensued turned an unflattering headline into a living hell for the transit agency. Rioting broke out, the victim’s family members confronted a BART spokesman during a TV interview, and the touchy issue of social justice between law enforcement and racial minorities was thrown center stage.

“Why is BART still in full-on public relations-cover-up mode, acting as if the evidence is still unclear?” a critical Jan. 7 editorial from the San Francisco Bay Guardian asked.

A series of damning media reports put BART under the spotlight for weeks on end as enraged community members accused the agency of being complacent and executing a cover-up to mask a tepid response to the shooting. Current and former BART employees even spoke out against their transit leaders at community meetings that went on for hours.

Trust and confidence in the transit agency evaporated when KTVU-TV broadcast a second video showing a second police officer beating Grant moments before he was shot to death. It angered passions even further.

Last week, an internal BART Police memo from Chief Gary Gee surfaced giving the rank-and-file instructions on how to donate food, money and books to Johannes Mehserle, their former colleague who’s now jailed and facing murder charges. The memo asked officers to “maintain your professionalism and integrity, despite being exposed to public abuse and the media’s reporting of the Fruitvale incident.”

When it was first reported by the Chronicle, BART immediately went on the defensive, saying that the memo in no way reflected the views of the transit police brass or internal affairs investigators who publicly promised an “unbiased” investigation into the incident.

Not many people bought it.

The clean-up attempt

A BART publicity photo shows employees sweeping Oakland city sidewalks Saturday morning. Reporters and news media were not notified of this clean-up event until after it happened. (Photo: BART)

This weekend, BART tried to rectify their image problem. The transit agency employees organized a clean-up effort around Downtown Oakland, sprucing up planters and sweeping the same sidewalks where angry BART police rioters struck a couple times — sending rocks through windows and terrorizing weary business owners who have left plywood up fearing another siege on city streets.

The employees’ hearts were in the right place, but there was only one problem: the transit agency never notified the media about the early morning event.

There were no reporters out there to document the clean-up effort, no television crews to catch the sweeping action. Instead BART sent out photographs it took of the clean-up afterwards and quotes from agency brass to media outlets, asking them to publicize their positive community contributions, even though they never notified the press that this was going on.

Instead, they asked the news media to run what equated to be a BART-produced advertisement. A few did, but others buried the story.

It received little to no public attention.

16-Straight days of bad news

For a month now, BART has been the subject of ridicule and embarrassing media reports of an agency that has been shaken from the negative publicity that it has suffered since New Year’s Day.

BART Police Chief Gary Gee is surrounded by a barrage of news cameras and reporters after a press conference. (SF Chronicle/ SFGate.com photo)

Public relations experts tell the Oakland Tribune that this could have been avoided if BART took better steps at reacting to the shooting incident right after it occurred.

“The first 24 hours in a crisis are the most critical. Had they done the right thing in the first 24 hours, maybe we wouldn’t have had riots,” PR man David Landis, of San Francisco-based Landis Communications Inc. tells the Tribune. “We live in a digital age where information is available to everyone. In the absence of information, the public is going to draw its own conclusions.”

The level of media attention that the Oscar Grant story received in January was unprecedented. Fueled by shocking cell phone video of a transit cop shooting an unarmed man as he was being restrained on the platform of an elevated train station, the story led every single local television newscast on the five channels for 16 consecutive days between the period of Jan. 1, the day the incident happened, to Jan. 16, when attention shifted to the inauguration of President Barack Obama.

Anti-BART and BART Police online groups sprung up overnight, and those stunning videos were uploaded and re-uploaded onto video sharing websites like YouTube over and over again for millions of worldwide internet users to watch. Everything from posters to shirts depicting BART and BART Police in an unflattering light sprung up.

Transit stations were graffitied, massive demonstrations brought thousands out to rally to demand justice for Grant, and BART became the unwilling recipient of the community’s pain and long-held frustrations of police mistreatment and corruption in Oakland.

The changes in tactics

Meanwhile, public opinion began to form — absence of any explanation from BART over the shooting incident — and anger quickly turned on the transit agency which appeared to spend generous amounts of time after the shooting quibbling over how to rescind an initial reaction of being on the defensive to adopting a “wait-and-see” approach — hoping that an explanation would surface to justify the shooting and lessen some of the public scrutiny.

“Any incident with that many people, you’re going to have different perceptions of what happened,” BART Spokesperson Jim Allison told the Chronicle moments after the shooting. He warned the public about making quick assumptions based on witness hearsay and the media’s reporting.

When it became apparent that finding such a smoking gun would be near impossible, BART copped up and asked for forgiveness.

“We have not handled this correctly, and we know it,” BART Director Lynette Sweet told the Chronicle.

“We must learn from our mistakes and we must make sure this never happens again,” BART Director Carole Ward Allen told community members during a town hall meeting. “I want to hear everything you have to say. You have every right to hold us accountable.”

Charlie Walker slams the BART Board of Directors during a community meeting over the shooting. (SF Chronicle/ SFGate.com photo)

By that time, many of the apologies came too late. Widely publicized community meetings hosted by BART turned into prominent forums where angry citizens came to denounce the transit agency in front of local and national media outlets — accusing the Board of Directors, the General Manager and the beleaguered police chief of incompetence and being complacent while chaos was erupting on the streets of Oakland.

The meetings, touted as a place to get answers to the community’s pressing questions, were anything but. Instead the Board was blasted again for ignoring pleas from the public to answer basic questions about BART Police policies and procedures.

“At this point we’re beyond venting to wanting to know if you’re going to answer the questions,” Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson said as he addressed the Board of Directors at one of those meetings. He left frustrated that basic questions and requests for information submitted by local politicians remained unaddressed.

The transit agency’s media relations department indicated that it has been overwhelmed and inundated with calls from reporters and dealing with a FEMA/ Hurricane Katrina-sized public relations fiasco that they have been struggling to deal with.

“We were getting hundreds of media calls a day, and the information was constantly changing. It takes time to get everyone on the same page with the same message,” BART Chief Spokesperson Linton Johnson told the Oakland Tribune.

The transit agency has also put up “responses” to news stories that have been published about the BART shooting incident — providing additional spin to reporting implicating BART of being behind the ball in its response and handling to the shooting incident.

In its “response” to a scathing Jan. 29 Chronicle investigation detailing the moments before, during and after the incident, BART supplied spin on “key points” that “may not have fully addressed.”

On Tuesday, the transit agency posted a blanket letter addressing those who e-mailed and wrote to the agency regarding the shooting incident. “We want you to know that this incident is not reflective of the BART organization or its police force,” the BART Board President Thomas Blalock and Director Carole Ward Allen write.

According to published reports, BART is consulting with the same public relations firm that worked on behalf of the San Francisco Zoo after a tiger escaped and killed a visitor on Christmas Day 2007 — a move many see as a last ditch attempt to salvage credibility with an angry public.

No positive publicity in sight

The shooting incident is raising another matter about just how qualified transit district personnel — whose main area of expertise is dealing with the functioning of a regional rapid rail service — is in dealing with law enforcement matters.

Members of the BART Board of Directors pause for a moment of silence in memory of Oscar Grant. (SF Chronicle/ SFGate.com photo)

At least one local blogger pointed the issue out:

“And here I thought that the complete failure to oversee BART Police was due to the fact that the BART Board of Directors is a collection of transportation policy nerds who have as much business being in charge of a police department as I do teaching a cooking class,” Sweet Melissa writes. “The problem, according to the BART Board, is that the nerds simply aren’t spending enough time thinking about the BART police. So, they decided to form a committee made up of four current BART Board members to to look really, really hard at the police force and its practices.”

Life is not getting any easier for the transit agency which is slated to increase fares, begin or hike parking fees at stations, and slash service to make up for a projected multi-million dollar budget deficit.

BART is also being accused of denying workers compensation money to the family of an employee who was hit by a speeding train and killed while inspecting tracks.

On Tuesday, 13 riders were sent to the hospital with moderate injuries after two trains carrying hundreds of passengers side-swiped each other in the Oakland subway. Service was disrupted for much of the day.

For a transit agency that enjoyed record ridership and high praise for much of 2008, positive publicity for BART has been scarce in the new year.

But the agency is hopeful that the bad news will lapse soon.

From the leaked BART Police Chief’s memo: “Together, we will weather this storm.”

E-mail the California Beat at californiabeat[at]gmail.com. Get the latest developments and complete BART Shooting coverage from the California Beat on our special page. Follow the California Beat on Twitter for the latest breaking news and updates on this story and many others.

John Burris, the attorney for BART Police shooting victim Oscar Grant’s family, will be filing additional claims against the transit agency on behalf of the other young men who were detained by transit agency police officerson New Year’s morning at the Fruitvale Station platform for civil rights violations.

Burris, speaking with the San Francisco Chronicle’s Matier and Ross, said that four to six other individuals will be asking BART to compensate them for the alleged violations after they were detained and handcuffed on Jan. 1 by BART Police officers. No arrests were made that night.

BART will be given a time period to respond to the claims which are precursors to lawsuits being filed against the agency. Burris has already filed a $25 million claim against BART for the wrongful death of Grant, who is seen on home video footage being shot in the back by Johannes Mehserle, a former transit officer who is now facing homicide charges for shooting the young Hayward man as he was being restrained by BART Policeman Tony Pirone, 36.

Pirone is also being accused of punching Grant in the face before he was shot to death. Burris sent a letter to the Alameda County District Attorney’s office asking that charges be brought against Pirone too. The officer’s lawyer, Bill Rapoport said that Pirone was defending himself when Grant tried to knee the officer in the groin.

Mehserle is still jailed at Santa Rita Correctional Facility in Dublin, Calif., but could potentially be released on a $3 million bail bond.

BART Police Officer Tony Pirone seen rolling Oscar Grant over moments after he was shot in the back by Johannes Mehserle on the Fruitvale Station Platform Jan. 1. Pirone's attorney says he hit Grant in self-defense.

CALIFORNIA BEAT STAFF REPORT

William Rapoport, the defense attorney for BART Police Officer Tony Pirone, says that his client did punch Oscar Grant in the face but did so trying to defend himself after Grant tried to knee the officer in the groin.

Home video of the incident captured by a witness to the New Year’s morning killing of Grant by former BART Police Officer Johannes Mehserle showed Pirone punching the victim in the face moments before he was brought to the ground, restrained on his stomach by Pirone, and shot to death by Mehserle.

Rapoport tells the San Francisco Chronicle that Pirone used “the exercise of reasonable force to overcome resistance by someone who was not just resisting but striking at the officer.” The attorney, on retainer through a state police association to represent Pirone, said that what the videotape broadcast as an exclusive by KTVU-TV doesn’t explicitly show is that Grant made a move towards kneeing the officer in the groin.

Rapoport said that was when Pirone struck him in the face.

• MORE: BART Shooting Incident Coverage Special Page

The attorney for the Grant family, John Burris, has called on the Alameda County District Attorney’s office to file charges against this second officer for what they perceive as an unreasonable use of force. Upon the broadcast of the punching videotape by KTVU on Jan. 23, BART General Manager Dorothy Dugger called for an internal affairs inquiry into the incident saying that allegations of police abuse are taken very seriously.

In grainy detail, the videotape aired by KTVU-TV shows Pirone getting up from where he placed one subject in handcuffs and rush toward Grant. He grabs Grant, who momentarily attempts to shake the officer off. In a California Beat analysis of the videotape, both of Grant’s feet appear to stay on the floor with no visible attempts in the clip where Grant tries to raise his knee to make contact with Pirone.

Less than five seconds lapse from when the officer grabs Grant, to when he punches him in the face, knocking him to the ground.

No charges have been filed against Pirone. Mehserle, the former officer who shot and killed Oscar Grant, is still in Santa Rita Jail Sunday afternoon. A judge granted him $3 million bail Friday.

The San Francisco Chronicle is also reporting Sunday that the BART Police Officer’s Association is slamming Transit Agency Police Chief Gary Gee for a lack of leadership that he has displayed in the shooting incident.

“We’re disappointed that we’re being held responsible for the decision making of others,” POA representative Jesse Sekhon tells the Chronicle. “As officers, we’re not in control of the investigation. We feel like we’re being thrown under the bus.”

BART Police Officers have been the subject of public ridicule and abuse in the aftermath of the shooting incident. Officers have been cursed at, spit upon and berated by angry community members infuriated that one of their officers beat and then shot an unarmed man to death in this highly publicized case.

Activists and protesters are vowing to keep Mehserle in jail. An organization calling for the jailing of all the BART Police Officers on the Fruitvale Station platform is planning another rally at 4:00 p.m. Monday at the Alameda Co. Superior Courthouse in Oakland.

By Tim Jue / Beat Staff Writer

Johannes Mehserle, the former BART Police officer who shot and killed an unarmed man at the Fruitvale train station on New Year’s morning, accidentally mistook his gun for his taser device that night and inadvertently shot Oscar Grant, 22, to death instead of stunning him, his attorney argued during a bail hearing at the Alameda County Superior Courthouse in Oakland Friday.

For the first time, his defense is revealing Mehserle’s explanation for the killing of Grant in court documents asking Judge Morris Jacobson to allow the former BART Police officer to post bond and be released from county lock-up at the Santa Rita Correctional Facility in Dublin, Calif., where he is being held.

But before setting bail at $3 million for Mehserle, Judge Jacobson chastised the former-Police Officer, saying that he was willing to lie to avoid facing consequences for his actions and told his legal counsel, attorney Michael Rains, that his explanation for the shooting incident did not make sense.

According to court documents, Mehserle tells another BART Police Officer Tony Pirone, the same officer seen in exclusive KTVU-TV videotape punching Grant in the face moments before he is shot to death, that he was going to taze the young father who was not cooperating with officers on the Fruitvale Station platform.

• MORE: BART Shooting Coverage Special Page
• MOTION TO SET BAIL: Court Document from Defense Attorney Michael Rains (via SFGate.com)

“I’m going to taze him, I’m going to taze him,” Mehserle told Pirone. “I can’t get his arms. He won’t give me his arms. His hands are going for his waistband.”

Fearing that Grant was armed,  Mehserle stood up and wanted to deploy his taser stun gun to shock Grant into submission, Rains argues. Instead, he went for his service pistol and shot the victim dead.

“Tony, I thought he was going for a gun,” Mehserle tells Pirone. Witness accounts of the incident supplied by Rains claim that he was in a state of shock after the incident — surprised that he went after his pistol instead of his taser gun.

Rains calls the shooting incident a “tragic accident” and suggested that Mehserle face involuntary manslaughter charges rather than the homicide charges being pursued by the District Attorney’s office.

“If he intended to pull his Taser and pulled his service weapon by mistake, why would he say to another officer after the fact, ‘I thought he was going for a gun’?” Alameda County Prosecutor Creighton told the San Francisco Chronicle. “Why wouldn’t he say, ‘Oh, my God, Tony, I meant to pull my Taser’ or something to that effect?”

Judge Jacobson didn’t buy the argument either. He called it “inconsistent.”

He said that if Mehserle feared that Grant was reaching for a gun on his person, Mehserle would be justified in using lethal force. But, instead Mehserle argued that he was reaching for his taser device — a non-lethal weapon used to stun suspects.

Jacobson also chastised the former officer, saying that he was a flight risk for fleeing to Nevada — where he was arrested — after the shooting incident. The judge said that he was a “danger to society” because of the shooting incident. Yet, the judge did agree with Rains that Mehserle had a right to bail because he is not charged in a captial case.

John Burris, the attorney representing the Grant family, called the decision to grant bail disappointing, but recognized the legal right Mehserle had to post bond.

The judge set the bail at $3 million to ensure that he would make all future court appearances.

The Oakland Tribune reports that Mehserle’s father said “Oh my God” after the judge announced the bail amount as a woman sitting next to him cried.

As of early Saturday morning, Mehserle was still being held in jail in Dublin.

The court hearing came with unprecedented security measures — dozens of Alameda County Sheriff’s Deputies flanked the courtroom and the courthouse as about 100 angry protesters crowded the lobby, entrance and hallways demanding that the former officer remain jailed.

Chants of “We are Oscar Grant!” echoed into the courtroom where more than a dozen deputies stood guard seperating the Mehserle and Grant families apart. Seven reporters were allowed into the hearing. A television pool camera was allowed to film through a window, but audio recording of the hearing was not allowed.

Mehserle appeared in a red jailhouse uniform but did not say anything throughout the proceedings.

The angry crowd of protesters were dissapointed after news spread that bail was granted to the former officer. Then they started marching through the streets of Downtown Oakland but were flanked by hundreds of riot-gear donning police officers who corralled them into a McDonald’s Restaurant parking lot and started making arrests for unlawful assembly.

Police say nine people were arrested.

Flashbangs were hurled at protesters near the Oakland Police headquarters after the back glass from an unmarked police vehicle was shattered. A television news reporter said that she ran from the chaotic scene after hearing the flashbang go off, fearing that something much more sinister was occurring.

Angry community members vowed to hold more protests in the days to come — publicly displaying their disapproval with the judge granting bail to Mehserle. A local website lists a 6:00 p.m. protest scheduled for Saturday in front of Oakland City Hall.

Many say that there is a likelihood that Mehserle will make bail and be released from jail. If convicted and sent to prison for life, his family may be attempting to gather enough cash to post bond because this could be Mehserle’s final chance at seeing the outside world.

“Normally, people who commit murder do not have money,” Burris tells the Tribune. “[But] his family has assets,”

By Tim Jue / Beat Staff Writer

BART officials conceded Thursday that they had lost the confidence of the public Thursday afternoon when they announced that an outside third-party investigative body would take over the internal affairs investigation into the New Year’s morning shooting incident that left a 22 year-old man beaten and shot to death by two police officers in front of hundreds of train passengers — some of them videotaping the entire incident.

Meanwhile, the San Francisco Chronicle’s Matier and Ross reports Thursday evening that BART Police Chief Gary Gee issued an internal memo to his officers giving them instructions on how to donate food items or money to Johannes Mehserle, the former transit police officer who is seen on home videotapes shooting and killing Oscar Grant, who is now facing homicide charges at the Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, Calif.

Among other things, Gee asks the rank-and-file to “maintain your professionalism and integrity, despite being exposed to public abuse and the media’s reporting,” the Chronicle reports.  “Together, we will weather this storm.”

Food, books, and money for Mehserle

BART Spokesperson Linton Johnson admitted to the Chronicle that “admittedly, this may not have been the best way to put the information out” but said told the newspaper that the memo was not indicative towards the attitudes that internal affairs investigators had when they were looking into the case.

• SPECIAL BEAT COVERAGE: Complete BART Shooting Incident Coverage

Gee, the BART Police Chief, had promised the public that his department would conduct a “an unbiased, thorough, and detailed investigation into what happened.”

Some angered community members have raised concerns about the legitimacy of those reassurances — saying that the memo urging officers — including what is presumed to be the same officers who are investigating the incident — to donate food and money to the jailed officer is a final nail in the coffin that validates their long-held suspicions that the investigation has been anything but transparent.

“It is unacceptable for the police chief, who ostensibly is investigating Mehserle and other officers, related to their conduct on the night that Oscar Grant was killed, to encourage officers to visit and make financial contributions to Mehserle,” John Burris, the attorney retained by the Grant family — who is suing BART for $25 million — said in a written statement.

Public confidence in the transit agency dipped considerably and anguish heightened again Friday evening when KTVU-TV broadcast a second video clip showing another BART Police officer, Tony Pirone, 36, punching Oscar Grant in the face before he was shot to death.

At a Wednesday morning meeting of the new police review committee of the BART Board of Directors, community leaders from around the Bay Area once again blasted the agency and it’s brass — General Manager Dorothy Dugger and Gee — for overlooking the punching incident and publicly exonerating all other officers of any wrongdoing.

“I came here trying to move forward, but I’m further back than when I started,” an angry community leader told the Board.

No radio communication after shooting

The Chronicle is also giving us a detailed look at what happened the night of the shooting incident, and points out in great detail that BART Police officers who responded to the Fruitvale Station platform on the early morning of New Year’s Day made critical mistakes that allowed witnesses to leave the scene and failed to inform supervisors and other officers down the line via police radios that there had been an officer-involved shooting.

Among the revelations uncovered by the Chronicle:

• Mehserle, Pirone and five other BART Police officers responding to the station that night were planning to place Oscar Grant and his friend under arrest for resisting arrest. It is unknown why he was being arrested in the first place.
• Pirone, an ex-Marine and former Lawrence Livermore Lab police officer, cursed at Grant and his friends and pointed his taser gun at them, threatening to stun them if they were belligerent.
• A crucial piece of video that was available for weeks on KTVU-TV’s website ktvu.com showing Pirone striking Grant in the face was either ignored or never uncovered by BART Police investigators until the television station aired it last Friday night. BART Board member Lynette Sweet said, “It’s embarrassing.”
• The seven BART officers on the platform that night ordered the operator to close the train doors, and continue on its way after the passengers became infuriated over the handcuffing of one of the members of Grant’s party. In video of the shooting incident, passengers can be seen hurling objects at the seven police officers after Grant is shot to death. Chaos erupted after more passengers realize that the young unarmed man laying on his stomach was shot in the back by Mehserle.
• Instead of holding the train at the platform and finding witnesses to interview, the train was sent on its way to Dublin-Pleasanton, where officers were dispatched to find anyone who may have seen the shooting incident. When they arrived at the terminal station and started asking for witnesses, they found none.
• Perhaps the most alarming error: BART Police officers did not communicate the officer-involved shooting through their radios leaving other BART officers down the line from the Fruitvale Station unaware of what just happened. Burris, the Grant family lawyer, told the Chronicle that the failure to radio what had happened into the Dispatch center, “creates more of an opportunity for a cover-up.”

The Chronicle points out that BART has been trying to improve its communication in the shooting incident by holding community town hall meetings and establishing a BART Board of Directors Police Review Committee to oversee the transit agency’s law enforcement operations.

The Public Trust

That same committee acknowledged Thursday afternoon that there was little or no public confidence in their agency. They announced plans to pass on the investigation to a yet-to-be-named outside third party to ensure that the investigation would be unbiased. Board Directors said they wanted to restore the public’s trust that they conceded has been lost.

“The BART Police Department and the agency need to rebuild trust with the public and one way to do that is to hand this off to a third party and let the facts take us wherever they go,” BART Director Joel Keller said in a written statement.

The agency also said that they would hire a third-party to examine the police department top-down and look at the police department’s hiring and training protocols.

Turmoil at BART Police

While there is growing pressure for Dugger and Gee to resign from the top posts at BART and BART Police, respectively, the police department is reportedly in deep turmoil over some officers who are upset with their own chief.

The Chronicle reported Thursday that the BART Police Officers Association — the union that represents the 200+ transit cops — are dismayed at the “lack of leadership” and the “reactionary response” of Gee to the shooting incident.

At a Jan. 22 meeting, the police union contemplated holding a vote of no-confidence on the police chief saying telling the Chronicle that they were disappointing with the way the situation was handled.

BART officials report that their officers are facing increasing hostility in the field from enraged members of the community who are shocked and dismayed over the New Year’s Day killing and apparent beating of Oscar Grant. Some officers have been spit upon and yelled at by the public.

Nonetheless, this week’s memo by Gee and BART Police Commander Travis Gibson was a one-page attempt to ask the rank-and-file to hang in there.

“You have our full support,” the two write.

Mehserle will appear at a 2:00 p.m. bail hearing at the Alameda County Superior Courthouse in Oakland Friday. Protesters have already started organizing a rally on local websites. There is no word on whether the Alameda County District Attorney will pursue charges against Pirone, who struck Grant in the face.

BART Police Officer Tony Pirone is the one that was seen punching Oscar Grant moments before he was fatally wounded by Johannes Mehserle, the officer seen kneeling over Grant in this image. (Courtesy: Karina Vargas / YouTube.com)

By Tim Jue / Beat Staff Writer

1/29/2008 13:50 PM PST UPDATE: The San Francisco Chronicle and KPIX-TV are reporting Thursday afternoon that BART plans to hand off their internal affairs investigation of the Oscar Grant incident to an outside law firm to “ensure its independence, and to ensure the outcome is more credible to the public,” according to BART Board of Director Joel Keller speaking with CBS5-TV. The Chronicle is also reporting that they are asking an outside firm to do a top-down review of the transit agency’s police force.

OAKLAND, CALIF — The newly created Police oversight committee of the BART Board of Directors met for the first time Wednesday morning to discuss the department’s handling of the New Year’s Day shooting death of Oscar Grant by one of their police officers but were once again slammed by infuriated African American business, political and religious leaders after new video released last week shows Grant being punched in the face by a second officer moments before he was shot to death.

The new video clip, broadcast by KTVU-TV, shows BART Police Officer Tony Pirone striking Grant in the face with what appears to be his right fist before he is brought down to the grown and pinned to the station platform when the officer places his knee on Grant’s head and neck area. Another officer, Johannes Mehserle, 27, shoots Grant and kills him.

Mehserle has since resigned from the BART Police force and is being held in county jail on homicide charges. Pirone has not been charged with any crime, but remains on paid administrative leave. Published reports indicate that he has been with BART Police for four years.

RELATED STORIES:

• OPINION: Roy’s Road Thoughts: Do we really need BART Police?(Jan. 30)
  
• EDITORIAL: Can the public trust the BART Police Department? (Jan. 28 )
• Calls for resignation of BART Police Chief, General Manager grow louder in wake of new video showing Grant punched (Jan. 26)
• New video shows BART officer punching Oscar Grant before he was shot (Jan. 24)
• EDITORIAL: UTTERLY APPALLING: Criminal charges should be filed against second BART cop, Transit police culture needs to be examined (Jan. 25)
  

The new beating video has inflamed tensions even further in the community. The BART Board Directors who chair the committee, BART Police Chief Gary Gee and BART General Manager Dorothy Dugger received another stinging tongue-lashing from prominent members of the African American community — most if not all of them berating the BART brass for the handling of the investigation and raised questions about why the second officer’s actions were overlooked.

Many said they had lost all confidence in the transit agency and the police department after the beating video aired on KTVU-TV Friday night.

“Whatever officer punched Oscar Grant in the face should have been disciplined right away,” the Rev. Amos Brown, head of the San Francisco chapter of the NAACP, said.

“I came here trying to move forward, but I’m further back than when I started,” another community leader told the Board.

Dugger and Gee are facing growing calls to resign. Two BART Board Directors — Lynette Sweet and Tom Radulovich — have publicly asked the BART officials to resign, and there are loud grumblings from other elected officials in Alameda County about the handling of the investigation and why Mehserle opened fire on Grant for no apparent reason.

“I think a majority of the [Alameda County] Board of Supervisors have already expressed their deep deep concerns . . . and are outraged about the shooting,” Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson told a local blogger during a BART Community meeting discussing the incident in mid-January.

The incident has taken a new twist with the videotaped beating of Grant being shown on KTVU-TV and through YouTube.com. It could potentially compromise the fragile community calm that appeared to set in after Mehserle was charged and arrested for murder.

Mass protests and violent rioting plauged Oakland for weeks following the Jan. 1 shooting despite cries for calm and patience in the highly-publicized killing of Oscar Grant.

Now, there are new calls and new questions over Pirone’s role in the New Year’s morning incident, and the actions of other officers who responded to the Fruitvale Station platform that early morning.

“We’re upset, we feel that instead of looking at an officer, they should be looking at officers,” the Reverend J. Alfred Smith Sr. told KGO-TV.

BART Director Carole Ward Allen, chair of the new police review committee,  said that she would consider asking an outside agency to investigate the beating incident to ensure that there are no confounding elements that may bias the findings.

And for the first time since the new beating videotape aired on KTVU-TV, Gee spoke out about the incident.

“It is a termination offense if you are not truthful or are insubordinate in answering any of the questions,” Gee told Channel 2. “We haven’t started interviewing any of the officers for the internal investigation, because we wanted the criminal investigation to move to where it is.”

He said that no civilian witnesses reported the beating incident to BART Police investigators. He would not comment on whether any of his officers brought the punch up during interviews about the New Year’s morning incident.

Mehserle, the former officer who shot and killed Grant as he laid on his stomach, will appear at a bail hearing Jan. 30 in Alameda County Superior Court.

When BART Police Chief Gary Gee stepped in front of television news cameras Jan. 4 and said this: “I want to assure Mr. Grant’s family and the public that we’re taking this investigation very seriously, and we’re committed to completing an unbiased, thorough, and detailed investigation into what happened on the early morning of New Year’s Day,” many of us believed him.

We expected his law enforcement agency to conduct an investigation that would regain the public trust that was lost when former BART Police Officer Johannes Mehserle fired a shot into the back of an unarmed man and killing him in front of a trainload of horrified witnesses.

Last Friday’s release of new video showing a second BART Police Officer, Tony Pirone, inexplicably slugging the same man, Oscar Grant square in the face before the infamous shooting shattered whatever confidence the public had in the transit agency and it’s police department.

BART claims that it did not know about the beating incident because no one — not a single one of the seven BART Police officers on the Fruitvale Station platform during the incident — came forward and reported the savage attack on Grant.

RELATED STORIES:

• OPINION: Roy’s Road Thoughts: Do we really need BART Police? (Jan. 30)
• MORE OUTRAGE: BART leaders blasted again for videotaped beating of police shooting victim (Jan. 29)
• Calls for resignation of BART Police Chief, General Manager grow louder in wake of new video showing Grant punched (Jan. 26)
• New video shows BART officer punching Oscar Grant before he was shot (Jan. 24)
• EDITORIAL: UTTERLY APPALLING: Criminal charges should be filed against second BART cop, Transit police culture needs to be examined (Jan. 25)
  

The female BART Police Officer seen standing directly next to Grant when Pirone launched his fist into the victim’s face apparently did not report the beating. Nor did any of the other officers who responded to the station that early morning — instead they stayed silent, hoping that they confiscated enough cell phones and cameras that might have caught those initial moments on tape from being made public, and allowed a vicious crime to go unreported.

Such disregard for the law from the very people who are being asked and paid by the public to uphold it is horrifying.

At the very least, it signifies the culture within the BART Police Department, that there is a widespread tolerance for the unacceptable and illegal use of force against private citizens. It implies that there exists an unwritten code of conduct that allows these kinds of actions — the beating and unjustified shootings of detained citizens — to go unreported.

Six other BART Police Officers on the platform during the incident who were interviewed by investigators said nothing about the beating.

And when promised of a “thorough, detailed investigation” by their internal affairs investigators, such an egregious act is overlooked or never uncovered in the process, the public’s confidence in BART to objectively examine the incident is decimated.

How can the public trust BART and the BART Police Department when it has betrayed our trust on so many levels?

We believe that the public cannot, and to rectify the apparent culture of police misconduct and malfeasance that allowed this shooting to occur and the beating to go unreported for weeks after the incident, a change in leadership is in order. New leadership should be brought in to regain the trust that he squandered in the handling of this shameful public display of the abuse of law enforcement power.

We urge BART Police Chief Gary Gee to resign for the sake of salvaging whatever public confidence remains in his department and transit agency.

By Tim Jue / Beat Staff Writer

There is a growing chorus of frustrated community members, angered by the apparent beating and shooting death of 22 year-old Oscar Grant New Year’s morning by a transit police officer, calling for the immediate resignation of BART Chief of Police Gary Gee and General Manager Dorothy Dugger.

Two BART Board of Directors were among those demanding the two quit after the latest home video clip of the incident at the Fruitvale Station in Oakland was broadcast by KTVU-TV Friday night showing the moments before Grant was shot and killed by former BART Police Officer Johannes Mehserle, 27.

The new video, an exclusive to KTVU-TV, showed a second transit officer coming up to Grant as he and his friends were lined up against a platform wall, raise his right fist, and deliver a hard punch to Grant’s face. Afterward, Grant sank to the floor after the officer, identified as Tony Pirone, brought out his taser gun to demand his cooperation.

“I am asking for the chief’s resignation,” BART Director Lynette Sweet told KTVU Monday. “I think as it stands right now the BART police force has operated in a way I can’t trust.”

Related Stories:

• New video shows BART officer punching Oscar Grant before he was shot (Jan. 25)
• EDITORIAL: No public trust in BART Police; Gee should resign (Jan. 28)
• EDITORIAL: UTTERLY APPALLING: Criminal charges should be filed against second BART cop, Transit police culture needs to be examined (Jan. 25)
• SPECIAL SECTION: Complete Coverage of the BART Shooting Incident

She told a KTVU reporter that Channel 2 was her primary source of information on the case. Sweet and her colleagues on the board are elected by voters of the Bay Area to oversee the public transit agency.

BART Police Chief Gary Gee

Gee, the transit agency’s police chief, has vowed that the highly publicized shooting incident of Grant would be thoroughly investigated in an unbiased manner. On Jan. 12, he announced that the investigation had been completed, and that his investigators would be forwarding their conclusions to the District Attorney’s office who is prosecuting the Mehserle, who resigned shortly after the shooting incident, with homicide.

“All of the other officers who responded to the incident at around 2:00 a.m. at the Fruitvale Station followed protocol and they performed their duties in a professional manner,” Gee told assembled members of the news media at BART headquarters in Downtown Oakland that day.

In a statement released Saturday evening, BART said that they would be launching a new investigation into Pirone for the alleged beating incident. The agency said that they were not made aware of the punch because none of the other officers or witnesses reported it to them during internal affairs interviews.

“In all of our interviews of people on the platform or on the train, we received no allegations of unreasonable force by any officer other than now former BART Police officer Johannes Mehserle,” the statement reads.

That revelation is not sitting well with BART Board Director Tom Radulovich,who is calling for Dugger, the General Manager, to step down. He called the beating “a clear case of police misconduct” and questions why the videotaped punch wasn’t brought up during the investigative process.

BART General Manager Dorothy Dugger

“You wonder what happens in incidents when there isn’t video,” Radulovich also told KTVU. “Is the internal investigation good enough? I think we need some change at the top.”

John Burris, the attorney retained by the Grant family, told the Oakland Tribune that he has sent a letter to Alameda County District Attorney Tom Orloff asking that criminal charges be brought against Pirone.

Burris wants the police officer, who is on paid administrative leave, charged with excessive force, assault and battery, and felony murder as an accessory. He said that the officer who threw his fist at Grant ignited a fuse that ultimately heightened tensions and led to an escalation in the use-of-force by Mehserle. Pirone is also believed to be the same officer seen in home videos placing his knee on Grant’s back subduing him as Mehserle abruptly stands up over Grant, unholsters his gun and fires a shot that kills the young father.

Mehserle sits in a jail cell at the Santa Rita Correctional Facility in Dublin, Calif., awaiting a bail hearing that has been postponed to Jan. 30. There was no comment from the District Attorney’s office Monday on whether they would be pursuing any charges against Pirone.

The new revelations are sure to reignite widespread community anger at the transit agency, which for weeks following the killing of Grant, issued a barrage of apologies and reassurances to the public that the matter would be investigated in an unbiased comprehensive manner. Protests and violent rioting followed in the days after the release of the videotapes that have now been seen worldwide.

Linton Johnson, the chief spokesperson for the transit agency told KCBS Radio that some of his officers have been yelled at and spit on by outraged members of the public. That anger appears to have escalated after the release of this new videotape showing Grant being struck in the face moments before he was shot to death by Mehserle in front of a packed trainload of New Year’s Eve revelers.

Some have turned the incident into an opportunity to wear that frustration through T-shirts that are being sold online depicting a pistol incorporated into the BART logo.

Monday’s events capped a dismal day for law enforcement in Oakland.

With calls for Gee’s resignation growing daily, rumors swirled for much of Monday afternoon alleging that Oakland Police Chief Wayne Tucker would be resigning after reports that four City Councilmembers were planning to put up a vote of no confidence and that the full council would be ready to oust Tucker by next week for his mismanagement of the department.

News organizations reported that the FBI was launching a federal investigation into the department for the actions of its internal affairs head, who allegedly kicked a drug suspect to death during a bust in 2000. Captain Ed Poulson then had other officers cover-up the incident, according to published reports.

The federal investigation comes on the heels of an announcement that eleven Oakland Police officers were being considered for termination after they falsified warrants and illegally seized evidence in searches. The scandal-plagued department responded to the rumors of Tucker’s resignation at the Mayor’s State of the City address Monday evening.

“The mayor has not asked for the chief’s resignation and the chief has not given his resignation,” Oakland Police spokesperson Officer Jeff Thomason told reporters. “And that is it.”

If there was ever a good time to bring back the tired old Watergate-Era cliche, “What did they know, and when did they know it?” we feel that right now is the appropriate time to pose that question to BART — once again — on the appalling actions of yet another one of their police officers in the New Year’s morning killing of an unarmed train passenger.

• Related Story: New video shows BART officer punching Oscar Grant before he was shot

On Friday night, KTVU-TV broadcast a chilling and disturbing new piece of video it had obtained showing the moments leading up to the shooting death of Oscar Grant whose high-profile videotaped murder at the hands of a transit agency police officer, 27 year-old Johannes Mehserle, has sparked worldwide outrage.

It shows another BART Police officer, identified as Tony Pirone, abruptly punching Grant in the face as the young father was up against a station wall appearing to cooperate with officers. Grant slumped down to the floor after he was hit and raised both his hands appearing to plead with Pirone after the officer brought out his taser gun and threatened to stun him and the other citizens around him.What we saw in that video was the savage assault on a private citizen by Pirone. We believe that it was a despicable act that is compounded by the sad realization that before Grant was shot to death by Mehserle for no apparent reason, he was beaten up by another officer again, for no apparent reason.

We have deep concerns and pressing questions that we demand BART and the BART Police Department answer — because frankly, it appears that their solemn attempts at being forthright with frustrated and angered members of the public where merely a public relations stunt that just went belly-up.

First, we want to point out this statement that BART Police Chief Gary Gee made on Jan. 12 at a press conference at BART headquarters announcing the completion of their internal investigation into the New Year’s morning incident: “All of the other officers who responded to the incident at around 2:00 a.m. at the Fruitvale Station followed protocol and they performed their duties in a professional manner.”

There are two ways to interpret this statement: that Gee did not know about the incident where Grant was punched in the face by Pirone. That raises questions about the thoroughness of the investigation and whether BART Internal Affairs officers did a comprehensive job interviewing witnesses and providing an unbiased investigation — something they had promised the public that they would do.

The other alternative — and the most unsettling one — that Gee and BART General Manager Dorothy Dugger had prior knowledge of the assault and were actively trying to deceive members of the news media and the public by attempting to execute a cover-up of Pirone’s actions through assurances that their officers on the Fruitvale Station platform that night had all acted appropriately, and that Mehserle was the sole officer whose actions were questionable.

And what about the BART Board of Directors? What did they know — if anything — about the moments leading up to the shooting?

We ask these important questions because the stunning new revelation — that another officer is videotaped unnecessarily and unlawfully attacking an innocent civilian — is indicative of the accepted culture and norms of the BART Police Department and transit agency brass’s incompetence at providing effective oversight of their own employees.

The actions of Johannes Mehserle could have easily been characterized as the “one bad apple” in the department, but when other officers are seen engaging in the illegal assault of a private citizen under the guise of law enforcement, there are overriding concerns of a serious problem that extends deep into an organization.

But the bottomline with this new video is that Pirone brutally assaulted Grant, and the Alameda County District Attorney’s office should also immediately file criminal charges against this second officer for his negligence and repulsive actions.

This BART Police officer, identified as Tony Pirone, is the one that was seen punching Oscar Grant moments before he was fatally wounded by Johannes Mehserle, the officer seen kneeling over Grant in this image. (Courtesy: Karina Vargas / YouTube.com)

Oscar Grant, the 22 year-old Hayward man who was caught on video tape being shot to death by a San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District Police Officer as he laid on his stomach, was punched in the face by another BART Police Officer moments before he was killed, a new video clip of the incident revealed.

KTVU-TV aired another exclusive video clip Friday night showing the initial moments of the altercation between a BART Police Officers and a group of civilians that were believed to have been involved in a fight on-board a special New Year’s Eve train heading back to the East Bay from celebrations in San Francisco.

The video clip shows a BART Police officer with a crew-cut haircut appearing to be in some sort of verbal dispute with a member of the civilian group who believed to have been Oscar Grant.

The San Francisco Chronicle identified that other officer as Tony Pirone Saturday evening.

The video clip then shows Pirone striking Grant in the face with what is appears to be his fist. In the video clip, it does not appear that Grant, or any of his friends provoked the officer physically, but after he is struck by the officer, Grant kneels down into a sitting position while the officer unholsters a taser and begins threatening him and other civilians in the group with the device.

• FROM KTVU.com: See the new video uncovered showing Grant being punched by another BART police officer moments before he was shot
• Related Story: Calls for resignation of BART Police Chief, General Manager grow louder in wake of new video showing Grant punched
  

• Related Editorial: UTTERLY APPALLING: Criminal charges should be filed against second BART cop, Transit police culture needs to be examined
• More California Beat coverage: Special BART Shooting Incident Page

Grant and his friends are seen cooperating and kneeling down to take a seat on the station platform after threats of being stunned by the officer’s taser gun.

It is unknown what the verbal dispute was about, but legal scholars specializing in police practices who viewed the video told KTVU that the incident raises deep disturbing questions about why Pirone attacked Grant.

“There’s no question in my mind that this is a completely powerful piece of evidence that he committed a vicious physical assault, unprovoked upon a citizen, for absolutely no reason,” UC Hastings Law School professor and former San Francisco Police Commissioner Peter Keane told Channel 2.

After viewing the KTVU video, Keane said, “That officer is committing a crime.”

The officer who struck Grant is believed to be the same officer seen in widely broadcast video clips of the shooting incident as the individual holding Grant face down on the Fruitvale platform while another police officer — Johannes Mehserle, 27, — abruptly stands up, unholsters his service weapon and fires a single shot into the young father, mortally wounding him.

Mehserle was arrested on Jan. 14 at a friend’s home in Douglas County, Nevada where he was staying after the shooting incident. Alameda County District Attorney Tom Orloff is pursuing homicide charges against the former BART police officer, who resigned after the incident and has plead the Fifth Amendment — which legally allows him to evade investigators’ questions about why he shot and killed Grant.

Last week, Mehserle retained new legal counsel: prominent attorney Michael Rains, who has defended Barry Bonds in the BALCO steroids scandal and other police officers who have been accused of wrong-doing.

It is unclear whether Orloff and his office is planning to pursue criminal charges against the second officer seen in the new video clip punching Grant. KTVU reported Friday that Pirone is not facing any charges, but he was interviewed by investigators following the incident for his account about the shooting. The Chronicle reports that he and other officers on the platform that night are currently on paid administrative leave.

BART officials responded to his actions in latest video clip Saturday evening. They vowed to launch a new investigation into the beating incident, effectively putting the new Police oversight committee, formed in response to the initial community outrage about the incident, to the test.

“I take this new allegation of police use of unreasonable force extremely seriously,”  BART General Manager Dorothy Dugger said in a written statement issued by the BART press office.  “I have directed Police  Chief Gary Gee to conduct a rigorous internal affairs investigation into this officer’s actions and to take appropriate action where warranted.”

Dugger said that her organization would continue to work with the District Attorney’s office on the criminal case into the New Year’s morning incident. The statement did not offer any explanations as to why Grant was punched, nor did it confirm the identify of the police officer who allegedly assaulted him.

BART Director Tom Radulovich told KCBS Radio Sunday evening that he believes the beating was a criminal act. He said that charges should be filed against Pirone.

It is unknown whether BART brass knew about the punching incident the precipitated the shooting of Grant, but it is raising new concerns about the thoroughness and findings of the investigation the agency conducted into the New Year’s morning slaying of Grant.

At a Jan. 12 press conference announcing the conclusion of their internal investigation, BART Police Chief Gary Gee exonerated the other BART Police officers — including the officer seen punching Grant — who responded to a reported melee between feuding groups.

“All of the other officers who responded to the incident at around 2:00 a.m. at the Fruitvale Station followed protocol and they performed their duties in a professional manner,” he told assembled members of the news media at BART headquarters in Downtown Oakland.

Grant’s family filed a $25 million wrongful death claim against the transit agency in the days following the shooting incident alleging that officers on the BART station platform that night violated his civil rights, illegally detained him without cause, and killing him as he laid on his stomach appearing in videos to be subdued by the officer who had struck him.

The family’s attorney, John Burris, told KTVU that he was aware of the punching incident. He said that the officer who threw his fist at Grant ignited a fuse that ultimately heightened tensions and led to an escalation in the use-of-force by Mehserle.

“If he didn’t have that level of conduct, I don’t believe the shooting would have taken place,” Burris told Channel 2.

By Tim Jue / Beat Staff Writer

Former BART Police officer Johannes Mehserle, the man who shot and killed an unarmed train passenger at the Fruitvale Station on New Year’s morning, plead not guilty Thursday afternoon to homicide charges.

Shackled and wearing a red-colored jailhouse uniform, he made his first Alameda County court appearance in Oakland to enter his plea while members of the victim’s family crowded the courtroom hoping to get their first glimpse of the former law enforcement officer who was caught on tape firing a single shot wounding Oscar Grant, a 22 year-old Hayward man.

The officer’s family also made an appearance in the courtroom, but both families were separated for the duration of the hearing for security purposes. A crowd of TV and newspaper photographers crowded the courtroom hallways — indicative of the highly publicized nature of the case which has received national headlines after violent spates of rioting precipitated the videotaped murder of Grant at the hands of a transit police officer.

The latest instance of rioting occurred Wednesday night when a mostly peaceful protest through the streets of Downtown Oakland turned into a nighttime vandalism spree that left a dozen businesses cleaning up broken windows after troublemakers broke panes of glass at a Wells Fargo Bank, Jamba Juice franchise, Radio Shack store and other Civic Center businesses.

Oakland Police arrested 18 people Wednesday night for those acts of violence after placing every available officer on duty to monitor the protest and respond to disperse crowds if necessary. Ironically, some officers were observed carrying video cameras to tape instances of vandalism and other criminal acts at the Wednesday evening protest event and nighttime vandalism spree.

Oakland Police told KGO-TV that they found at least two molotov cocktails in the backpacks of rioters.

A 14th Street business owner monitors the crowd of protesters marching by his restaurant. There were no incidents of violence reported Wednesday evening. (Beat Photo)

By Tim Jue / Beat Staff Writer

A small group of rowdy rioters turned a peaceful evening protest into a nighttime vandalism spree hours after 1,500 demonstrators took to the streets to voice their anguish over the shooting death of a 22 year old unarmed Hayward man on a BART station platform.

Several storefronts and bus shelters sustained broken windows and glass panes when a small group of troublemakers tore through Downtown Oakland’s Civic Center plaza and shattered dozens of windows to the Wells Fargo Bank, Jamba Juice and Radio Shack stores.

Cars parked along Martin Luther King Way near Civic Center Plaza also sustained numerous broken windshields when rioters jumped on them and threw items — including bicycles — to shatter the auto glass. At least one television news photographer for CBS station KPIX was attacked when a rioter assaulted him.

Earlier calls from police and political leaders for a calm protest appeared to have failed on a day when the man who is at the center of the controversy appeared for the first time in public since the New Year’s day slaying of Oscar Grant.

Johannes Mehserle, the former BART Police Officer who was caught on tape shooting and killing Grant on the Fruitvale Station platform, was brought back to the Bay Area Wednesday — under arrest and facing homicide charges.

He waived extradiction in Douglas County, Nevada early Wednesday morning — effectively sending him back to Alameda County where District Attorney Tom Orloff said today that Mehserle intentionally shot and killed Grant and that he was pursuing homicide charges against the former BART police officer.

Mehserle, 27, was booked into Santa Rita County Jail in Dublin, Calif. Wednesday afternoon after being driven back to the Bay Area by Oakland Police officers who placed him under arrest at a home near South Lake Tahoe, where Mehserle had been in seclusion since the shooting incident.

His attorney, Christopher Miller, told reporters at an afternoon press conference at his law offices in Sacramento that he is confident that his client will be acquitted of the murder charge but offered little information about Mehserle’s mindset before and after the shooting incident. Miller did not answer questions about whether Mehserle will talk with investigators — something he has refused to do under the Fifth Amendment — and a something that Orloff said made his investigation much more difficult since he did not hear the officer’s perspective on why Grant was shot while being restrained.

News of the arrest permeated through an assembled crowd of more than 1,500 people who peacefully convened at Oakland City Hall to call for an end to police violence and for the prosecution of Mehserle. The crowd began to gather at 4:00 p.m. at City Hall.

After a series of speeches, the group marched down 14th Street to the Alameda County Courthouse for more speeches. Then the group marched back to Oakland City Hall for the final wrap-up to the evening’s protest event.

Speakers called on the courts to convict Mehserle and bring justice to other victims of police violence. Some protesters even called to disarm BART Police officers — which provides law enforcement services for the transit agency.

While many protesters were pleased that Mehserle is now under arrest for Grant’s murder, they were still very angry over the circumstances that led to his death — a white police officer killing an unarmed black man.

The tension and hostility between community members and police was very evident at the event.

Police officers from the city of Oakland and Deputies from the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office were fearing a repeat of the violent mischief that left more than 45 businesses and more than two dozen cars vandalized last Wednesday. They came out in force tonight — staying in the background for fear that their presence might incite additional police anger — but donned riot gear prepared to intervene if necessary.

The outbreak of violence started at around 9:00 p.m., hours after the end of the planned protest. A crowd loitered around the intersection of 14th and Broadway Streets, refusing to leave. That was when a small pocket of rioters started hurling items — including their bodies — through plate glass windows. Police in riot gear swarmed in, deployed tear gas, and took more than a dozen people into custody.

Oakland political leaders condemned the latest spate of violence that has happened in connection with the BART shooting incident. City Councilman Larry Reid told KGO-TV that assembled protests in Oakland were in danger because of the propensity for violence in these large group gatherings.

Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums called for peace before today’s scheduled protest event. Organizers of today’s event hired private security guards and protest facilitators to keep crowds orderly during the march and rallies.

And it was an orderly event, organizers point out. There were no incidents and no arrests during the evening rally and march.

Mehserle is expected to be arraigned in Alameda County Superior Court Thursday.

And threats against Mehserle continue to be reported. The Napa County Sheriff’s Dept. said today that they evacuated 50 residents who lived around Mehserle’s parents’ house in Napa Co. after a family friend found two suspicious packages on the doorstep.

The bomb squad was called in to investigate and detonate the suspicious packages. Neighbors were allowed to return to their homes a few hours after the incident was first reported.

Former BART Police Officer Johannes Mehserle was arrested in Douglas County, Nevada Tuesday night. This is his booking photograph. (Courtesy: Douglass Co. Sheriff's Office via AP)

By Tim Jue / Beat Staff Writer

UPDATED: 1/14/2008 14:45 PST — The former BART Police Officer who shot and killed an unarmed 22 year-old man at the Fruitvale Station during the morning hours of New Year’s Day has been arrested and charged with murder, Alameda County District Attorney Tom Orloff told reporters today during a morning press conference.

Orloff said that Johannes Mehserle, 27, was taken into custody in Douglas County, Nevada Tuesday evening at 7:00 p.m. without incident after his office filed homicide charges and issued a fugitive arrest warrant for the former police officer.

The Chroncle reports that Mehserle was staying at a friend’s home near South Lake Tahoe. It is where he presumably has been under police protection after he and his family received numerous death threats by individuals upset about his involvement in the videotaped shooting death of Oscar Grant.

Deputies in Douglas County told the Chronicle that Mehserle was arrested without incident.

On Wednesday morning, Mehserle appeared in court and told a Nevada judge that he would waive extradition and return back to the Bay Area to face homicide charges for the shooting death of Grant. Mehserle will be booked at the Santa Rita Correctional Facility in Dublin, Calif when he arrives back in the Bay Area sometime Wednesday.

KTVU also reports that he is being held on a no-bail warrant. The Douglass County Sheriff said that Mehserle was housed in an isolation unit under suicide watch.Orloff told reporters that he has filed a homicide charge against Mehserle, calling the shooting death of Grant an “intentional” act. He said that it would be up to the courts to decide whether the degree of the murder charge — first, second, etc. The courts could also decide to charge Mehserle with manslaughter depending on evidence presented by prosecutors.

The startling news comes on the heels of another mass protest slated to take place Wednesday at 4:00 p.m. on the steps of Oakland City Hall. Police and organizers are bracing themselves for a turnout of 1,000 people.

• More Coverage: BART Shooting Incident Page and Roy’s Road Thoughts: Recent events prove BART needs drastic changes

A protest that occurred last Wednesday resulted in mass rioting in Downtown Oakland that left at least 45 businesses and more than two dozen cars vandalized. More than 100 people were arrested that night. Police and local political leaders spent much of today preparing those business owners to take precautions to protect their storefronts and advise them that the protest was taking place.

They also called on demonstrators to avoid violence and a repeat of last Wednesday’s raucous events that briefly put Downtown Oakland under siege. A number of Downtown Oakland employers are telling their employees to leave work early today to avoid the protests.

There have been loud cries for the arrest and prosecution of Mehserle from prominent community leaders who have slammed him, his former employer and the District Attorney for not moving quickly enough on the investigation. The transit agency, BART, has been the target of much of the criticism for the perceived mishandling of the investigation process.

Mehserle was approached by BART investigators after the shooting but after retaining counsel shortly after he shot and killed Grant: he plead the Fifth Amendment when questioned — effectively staying silent about why he opened fire against the unarmed man.

BART investigators announced Monday that they had concluded their investigation and passed the findings along to the Alameda County District Attorney’s office.

Mehserle is expected to be arraigned in Alameda County Superior Court Thursday.

Protesters chanted "I am Oscar Grant!" Monday night at a small demonstration that started at San Francisco's Civic Center Plaza. (Courtesy: SF Chronicle/ SFGate.com)

By Tim Jue / Beat Staff Writer

There are new revelations today from a BART Board member who said that the agency’s top brass withheld information about the shooting investigation of an unarmed 22 year-old man by a transit district police officer on New Year’s morning from the elected officials who oversee the transit system.

BART Board member Lynette Sweet tells the Oakland Tribune that BART General Manager Dorothy Dugger and BART Police Chief Gary Gee never told her in previous discussions that the transit agency had tried to interview the former officer who shot and killed Grant, Johannes Mehserle, until it was revealed today by Gee at a press conference where it was announced that their internal investigation into the matter was completed and that they would be handing off their findings to the Alameda County District Attorney’s office.

Sweet said that Gee and Dugger “mishandled” the investigation and response to the shooting. The lack of information being channeled through to the Board of Directors — the elected representatives responsible for overseeing the department — made Sweet and her colleagues look like, as California Public Utilities Commissioner Timothy Simon said Sunday, “an indecisive tribunal with no true authority.”

Sweet told the Tribune that if put up to a vote, she’d elect to remove Dugger and Gee from their posts.

She told KGO-TV Monday night that both Gee and Dugger downplayed the shooting incident in the days that followed, but said that the story she had been told by her own BART brass was inconsistent with the home videos that were made public just days later.

• THE LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: More Beat BART Police Shooting Coverage

The public learned of several key developments Monday from BART officials:

• With the completed investigation, Gee said that the former officer, Mehserle, was carrying a taser gun on his opposite holster the night he shot and killed. Mehserle did not fire the taser that night. The investigation is now in the hands of Alameda County District Attorney Tom Orloff, who will decide whether or not to press criminal charges against Mehserle. He has indicated he will make a swift decision within the coming days.
• Mehserle invoked the Fifth Amendment and did not speak to investigators when he was questioned by BART Police regarding the incident. Gee said that Mehserle was isolated right after the shooting by detectives, but after his attorney showed up at the station, he clammed up and plead the fifth. Gee also said his investigation collected testimony from all of the seven officers on the BART platform during the shooting and more than a dozen witness statements. Mehserle has been the only individual not to speak out about the incident.
• Gee and Dugger did not release specifics about the investigation, including information about whether the officer fired his weapon accidentally or intentionally. Sweet, the board member, said that she and her colleagues have yet to obtain a copy of the investigation’s findings.

The BART Board also received another scolding from the public during a special 1:30 p.m. meeting at BART headquarters that was called to form a new oversight committee for the law enforcement operations of the transit district. A smaller, but equally vocal crowd again chastised the agency for its apparent neglect at addressing the slow pace of their investigation and the controversial shooting incident itself.

The community outcry has been intense and at times, increasingly violent.

At an evening protest that started at San Francisco’s Civic Center Monday evening, a group of 100 protesters chanted “We are Oscar Grant!” as they marched up Market Street toppling garbage cans, throwing traffic cones into the roadway and setting small fires. A large contingent of San Francisco Police officers wearing riot gear swarmed in and dispersed the crowd without making any arrests.

Another larger protest is scheduled for 4:00 p.m. Wednesday in front of Oakland City Hall. Demonstrators are calling for the prosecution of the officer and to air concerns about building tensions between the African American community and law enforcement that is appearing to come to a head with the video-taped shooting of a young Black man on a subway station platform by a white police officer.

Many community leaders, such the local and statewide leaders of the NAACP, view race to be a central issue in the shooting death of Grant.

The community anguish and vows of a repeat of the Rodney King Riots in Los Angeles where four white police officers were acquitted for the brutal videotaped beating of an African American motorist is prompting the United States Department of Justice to send a team from their Community Relations Service section to defuse racial tensions and animosity between law enforcement and the community.

The Associated Press reported Monday that they will meet with law enforcement and community leaders to prevent any more outbreaks of racial violence.

Oakland Congresswoman Barbara Lee also spoke out Monday on the incident.

“The whole world saw what happened,” she told the AP from Washington. “It’s a shame and disgrace that this person has not been arrested.”

Lee said that she was watching the local investigation closely, but said that she would be willing to bring in Federal prosecutors to examine whether civil rights were violated in the shooting incident.

The Chronicle reports that the crowd chanted “We are Oscar Grant!” while marching up Market Street towards the Financial District late this evening. No arrests have been reported. San Francisco Police officers wearing riot gear quickly de-escalated the melee when the violence started breaking out.

NEWS UPDATE — BART officials announced today that they have finished their investigation into the New Year’s morning shooting incident where one of their police officers shot and killed a 22 year-old young father from Hayward.

At an afternoon press conference, top brass from the transit agency said that they attempted to interview that former officer, Johannes Mehserle, who left the department last week. He reportedly cited his Fifth Amendment Right to remain silent and did not talk to investigators.

The agency did not say whether the shoot was accidental or intentional.

BART will be sending their conclusions to the Alameda County District Attorney’s office, which is expected to determine whether the officer will face criminal charges for shooting Oscar Grant to death as he laid on his stomach on the platform of Fruitvale Station.

The District Attorney’s investigation could be wrapped up in a matter of days.

A 5:00 p.m. anti-BART Police protest to call for the arrest of Mehserle is expected to snarl evening commute traffic in San Francisco’s Civic Center area. This is the first time an organized protest stemming from the incident has taken place outside of Oakland.

And we are learning that the U.S. Department of Justice is sending a team to Oakland to try and defuse racial and community tensions that the shooting incident has sparked. They are expected to meet with Oakland law enforcement officials and community leaders to try and quell some of the widespread anguish that has evolved from the shooting incident.

Check back tonight for a full California Beat report on today’s developments.

BART Board Member Carole Ward Allen, who represents the Fruitvale District where Oscar Grant was killed, speaks to a gathered crowd of angry community members Sunday afternoon to discuss the shooting incident. (Courtesy: SF Chronicle/ SFGate.com)

By Tim Jue / Beat Staff Writer

OAKLAND, CALIF – Enraged community members and activists fed up with the plodding pace of the investigation and response into the New Year’s morning slaying of 22 year-old Hayward resident Oscar Grant by a BART Police officer vowed at a Sunday community meeting with the transit agency that “there’s going to be hell in the streets” if the now former officer isn’t promptly arrested and charged with criminal acts, the Chronicle reported.

The meeting, which took place at the Joseph Bort MetroCenter Sunday afternoon, was another chance for community members — angered by the tepid response to the killing and perceived misgivings in the investigation process — to grill the BART Board of Directors and transit agency brass.

And grill they did.

For about three hours, dozens of speakers targeted their fury over the incident at the transit agency panel — which included BART’s General Manager, Dorothy Dugger, and Transit Police Chief Gary Gee. They chastised them all for not yet arresting the former officer, Johannes Mehserle, who resigned abruptly last Wednesday which effectively allows him to avoid having to submit to interrogations with BART internal affairs investigators. He has yet to speak publicly or with investigators about the incident as demands for his arrest and prosecution grow louder with each passing day.

“I encourage you as others have today, to act swiftly and make decisions,” California Public Utilities Commissioner Timothy Simon told the BART Panel. “You are really looking as if you’re an indecisive tribunal with no true authority.”

• More Coverage: OUR OPINION: BART’s reaction to Grant shooting was despicable

He said that he would ask the State PUC — which oversees rail transit operations in California — to review BART’s tri-annual reports to ensure that passengers’ safety was intact after Grant, who was returning home from New Year’s celebrations on a BART train, was shot and killed while being subdued by transit police officers, KGO-TV reported.

Yet the most contentious moment of the meeting occurred when Oakland City Councilwoman Desley Brooks, who chastised the BART Board during their regular meeting last Thursday, confronted them for a second time and demanded to know why a list of demands she presented during the previous meeting asking for, among other things, the identification of all BART Police officers on the platform when the incident occurred had not yet received a response.

“Something is desperately wrong with this picture, and if you guys can’t take action let us know because there are those of us who are willing to jump in there,” she said. “But, by virtue of your authority you have to do the action. So, if we need to write it for you let us know. Get us your policies and procedures and we can review them.”

That’s when BART Board member Carole Allen Ward, who represents the Fruitvale District — the scene of the shooting — said that “she didn’t need any help” with the process. She quietly got up, and left the meeting for about 10 minutes mid-way through Brooks’s public comment period.

Other speakers who elected to speak at the meeting weren’t any nicer to the panel.

They expressed frustration and anger over why it took so long for BART to interview their employee about the shooting incident, and why Mehserle has yet to be arrested. Observers say that the New Year’s morning shooting incident has touched off an airing of deep seated frustrations between the African American community and law enforcement that has been building for years in Oakland and in the Bay Area.

And it appears that the outrage has prompted BART officials to expedite their investigation that Chief Gee said would come to a conclusion this week. Alameda County District Attorney Tom Orloff said last week that his investigation could come to a close in the next two weeks.

The BART board has also called for the creation of an internal police oversight committee at a special meeting set for 1:30 p.m. on Monday at BART headquarters. No such committee exists today in the transit district .

On Saturday, California State Attorney General Jerry Brown announced that his office would appoint a prosecutor to oversee the investigation into the case — appeasing loud demands from some local leaders for his intervention into the investigation.

More protests calling for Mehserle’s arrest and prosecution are planned for this week. One will take place at 4:00 p.m. Monday at San Francisco’s Civic Center, and another protest will start at 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday at Oakland City Hall.

Mourners pass by a memorial for Oscar Grant set up at the Fruitvale BART station earlier this week.

By Tim Jue / Beat Staff Writer

Community tensions will likely remain high in Oakland and in the Bay Area following the New Year’s Day shooting death of Oscar Grant, a 22 year-old BART passenger who was shot in the back while being subdued in the back.

This outrage has prompted the transit agency and local politicians to tackle the outrage and assuage some of the anguish by holding community forums and announcing new legislation to push for more oversight of the BART Police Department.

At a morning press conference Saturday with the NAACP, California State Attorney General Jerry Brown said that he would appoint a prosecutor from his office to provide oversight of the investigation into the deadly New Year’s morning shooting incident that was captured on cameras and disseminated around the world.Brown took a decidedly different stance from earlier this week when he said that he would allow the local authorities to handle the investigation and keep his office out of the process. The loud cries for state intervention from a growing chorus of community leaders seemed to have worked after he met with state NAACP leaders in Oakland.

California State Assemblyman Sandre Swanson (D-Oakland) also announced today that he would push for retraining of BART Police officers to ensure that such an event never happened again, and the BART Board of Directors have scheduled a town hall meeting with community members Sunday afternoon at 2:00 p.m. at the Joseph Bort MetroCenter in Oakland.

Fueled by cell phone videos which captured the controversial incident, a dearth of information coming from the investigators working on the case, and existing mistrust of law enforcement, there are quiet whispers in the community that the killing of Grant, by former BART Police Officer Johannes Mehserle, 27, has the potential of touching off a repeat of the Rodney King rioting in 1992 that left much of Los Angeles in chaos for days after a jury acquitted four police officers for the videotaped beating of King.

But with the advent of the internet and the gaining influence of mass media almost 18 years later, the videos have received worldwide attention — aired by television stations across the globe, and accessible to anyone with an internet connection. Views of the damning video are often coupled with shock and outrage, too.

Racial undertones are playing a critical role in the Grant killing: he was black, and the police officer was white. The recent outrage expressed by community leaders in Oakland have centered on the bitter relationship young African Americans have had with the law enforcement community. The videotaped killing of Grant might have just stimulated a “powderkeg” that is ready to explode, UC Berkeley Sociology professor Harry Edwards told KCBS Radio this week.

Still, the outrage had extended beyond racial and ethnic lines. Many have expressed concerns with the slow pace of the investigation and question why the former police officer has yet to be arrested for the shooting death of Grant.

Mehserle is believed to be in seclusion and has yet to give a statement to investigators about why he shot the young Hayward father to death as he laid on his stomach appearing to cooperate with law enforcement orders on the platform of Fruitvale Station.

On Saturday, the BART Police Officers Association issued a statement on the investigation. They said that they were working with the other agencies and the District Attorney’s office to bring the case to a conclusion. BART has said that they hope to close their investigation soon, and Alameda County District Attorney Tom Orloff has said his investigation into whether or not criminal charges should be brought against the officer may be done in just two weeks.

Shock at the brutality of the murder has poured in worldwide as internet views of the video have skyrocketed and public interest in the situation is continuing to pick up even after more than a week has passed since the incident.

SOUND OFF on FACEBOOK: BART SHOOTING INCIDENT: Should the Police Officer, Johannes Mehserle, face criminal charges for killing Grant?

]]> http://californiabeat.wordpress.com/2009/01/11/editorial-barts-reaction-to-grant-shooting-was-despicable/ Sun, 11 Jan 2009 01:13:56 +0000 californiabeat http://californiabeat.wordpress.com/2009/01/11/editorial-barts-reaction-to-grant-shooting-was-despicable/

If public anger surrounding the New Year’s Day shooting death of Oscar Grant should be channeled at any particular institution: it should land directly on the San Francisco Bay Area Transit District.

Firstly, it was one of their officers, wearing a BART Police Department shield, who mercilessly took away the life of an innocent young father who is seen on home video tapes cooperating with officers as they attempted to defuse an already calm situation at the Fruitvale station on New Year’s Day. He inexplicably shot Grant to death as hundred of passengers watched in horror from an idle train at the platform.

Secondly, the response from BART Police officers at the scene that night was that of an apparent cover-up as they indiscriminately confiscated cell phones and cameras from witnesses who might have recorded the morning’s horrific events unfold. Such actions are unconstitutional and further tarnish the image of the police department and the transit agency.

And lastly, the response from BART officials — including elected officials who are supposed to represent their constituents — was despicable and shameful. The agency allowed one week to pass before meeting with the involved officer for an interview about what happened — that’s when his attorney delivered an abrupt resignation letter and left BART in the dark without the critical information they needed about the officer’s own intentions about why he shot and killed Grant.

The response from the BART Board of Directors was no better. As community tensions rose, and the urgency of the situation became much more apparent, the Directors made little initiative to offer condolences or express their voters’ frustration with the shooting and the slowness of process — this as violence broke out steps away from BART’s headquarters.

It was this week when BART Board of Director’s President Thomas Blalock boldly told KGO-TV reporter Cecilia Vega that after viewing the home videos that captured the incident, he could not discern whether or not Mehserle pulled out his own weapon.

We ask then, whose gun might have Mehserle used? Footage caught by Karina Vargas and widely broadcast shows the officer reaching for his weapon in his holster.

That comment raised many eyebrows in the community, and it is illustrative of the dismal response and consideration the Board gave to Grant’s killing and their constituents’ anger towards their agency.

Instead they cowered, attempted to generate excuses, and as those videos were disseminated around the world for all to see, they failed to recognize just how angry the Bay Area was that one of their officers had shot and killed an innocent man and attempted a failed cover-up operation — in front of members of the Bay Area news media — by ordering witnesses to surrender cell phones.

Blalock and other BART elected officials paid for their carelessness Thursday when dozens of community members rightfully scolded them for their failure to recognize the community outrage and an inability to be proactive and responsive in channeling their constiuents’ frustration.

So far, the actions of BART Police, management and the Board of Directors in the handling of the investigation and the public anguish of the shooting incident have bordered on incompetence.

We believe that there are many in the Bay Area who would wholeheartedly agree.

SOUND OFF on FACEBOOK: BART SHOOTING INCIDENT: Should the Police Officer, Johannes Mehserle, face criminal charges for killing Grant?

By Tim Jue / Beat Staff Writer

OAKLAND, CALIF — There are heightened concerns from Oakland business owners, the local chapter of the NAACP and politicians that more violent rioting will occur in the city as tempers continue to flare over the New Year’s Day killing of Oscar Grant by a BART Police Officer at the Fruitvale Station.

On Wednesday, a violent group of rioters caused damage to nearly 300 businesses in Downtown Oakland, damaged more than two dozen cars, and left nerves rattled in a community that’s now become the focal point for public demands to bring criminal charges against the officer, Johannes Mehserle, who has since resigned from the BART police department.

On Friday, prominent business leaders asked that police reinforcements be brought in from surrounding cities and counties to assist the Oakland Police Dept. in dispersing any future violent demonstrations. They are worried that a protest planned for this coming Wednesday could yield the same vandalism that left many shops in the 17th Street corridor of Downtown Oakland with boarded-up windows from vandals who sent broke hundreds of panes of glass.

Many shopkeepers said they are electing to keep those sheets of plywood up because they fear additional rioting in the weeks to come, especially as conclusions from investigations by BART and the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office on whether to prosecute Mehserle are completed.

Some keepers have also said that they might not be able to replace some broken windows because they simply can’t afford it — a down economy and a dismal Christmas shopping season has resulted in sluggish sales and dwindling profits for many of them.

The recent acts of vandalism couldn’t have come at a worse time, they say.

Local leaders of the NAACP are also concerned that the spate of violence in Oakland and growing unrest in communities across the nation over the killing of Grant might lead to trouble in those cities. They say that as the stunning home videos of his killing are viewed by more individuals, the potential for outbursts in Oakland and in other parts of the country is highly probable.

They are also concerned with the ability of the county District Attorney’s office and the two police departments, BART and Oakland, to thoroughly investigate the shooting incident. They say the shooting incident of Grant has shattered trust and community relations between local law enforcement and the public after a uniformed transit police officer shot Grant in the back as he laid on his stomach on the platform of the Fruitvale BART station while hundreds of passengers — some filming the incident with cell phones and cameras — watched in horror.

NAACP leaders will hold a 10:00 a.m. meeting Saturday with California State Attorney General Jerry Brown to request that his office be brought in to investigate the shooting incident and restore confidence in local law enforcement. The BART Board of Directors also said they would ask Brown to intervene after receiving an hours-long tongue-lashing Thursday from enraged community members over the transit agency’s botched response to the shooting incident.

Brown told reporters Friday that he has no intention of becoming involved in the investigation just yet, and that he wanted to allow local authorities to come to a conclusion before stepping into the process. He said that if he saw any improprieties in the process, he would become involved.

The former officer, Mehserle, has yet to speak with investigators or give his testimony about what happened Jan. 1. Since he is no longer an employee of BART, the transit agency cannot compel him to speak with its internal affairs investigators.

That is contributing to the regional anguish over the incident. Daily protests, varying in size, have been taking place in Downtown Oakland since Wednesday. A group of high school students protested and chanted anti-BART Police slogans in front of City Hall Friday afternoon, and a small ruckus was caused by about 50 protesters who up-ended garbage cans and took out glass from an AC Transit bus shelter Thursday evening on Broadway Street.

BART officials took an about-face after Thursday’s heated board meeting. Transit District General Manager Dorothy Dugger told reporters Friday that she a special meeting of the Board has been scheduled for 1:30 p.m. on Monday to announce the establishment of an oversight committee within her organization that specifically watches over the agency’s law enforcement operations.

She offered condolences to the Grant’s family, and vowed to ensure that “such a terrible tragedy never happens again.”

• The Napa Valley Register reports late Thursday that the family of the BART Police officer Johannes Mehserle is “terrified” after having to relocate numerous times after receiving death threats. The officer, his family, and his one-week old baby have all been targeted in these death threats. Earlier this week, we learned that the officer has been placed under police protection. At least one group on Facebook.com has posted an address that is believed to be the officer’s residence, his e-mail and other online identifying information. “This is just a sad thing that has happened for everyone. Both families have suffered. One has lost a loved one, and Johannes will have to face what happened every day of his life,” the family friend told the newspaper. The former officer, who resigned from the force Wednesday, has yet to speak with investigators or the public about why he opened fire.

• A second night of protests in Downtown Oakland Thursday evening resulted in minor vandalism and the arrests of two people after a crowd of 50 or so enraged demonstrators momentarily blocked traffic on Broadway Street, up-ending garbage cans and chanting slurs against assembled police riot officers. The crowd remained relatively calm compared to the chaos of Wednesday night where 300 businesses sustained heavy damage from rioters.

• California State Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) and State Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) announced late Thursday that they would be introducing legislation to create a citizens committee that would provide more oversight of the transit agency’s police force, which for decades, has lacked any sort of citizen’s review board or police commission.

• More than one week after the shooting incident, this story is still dominating the airwaves and in local newspapers. Today, CNN reported live from the Fruitvale BART station, the scene of where Oscar Grant was shot to death. With the prominent media attention, community outrage in Oakland and around the region appears to be intensifying as testimony from the officer has not yet been obtained and the story gains additional national traction.

Please, bookmark our homepage and turn to us for the latest information on this developing story. We will continue to bring you the latest news updates as they break.

Here are links to complete coverage of the BART shooting incident from the California Beat:

• “THAT WAS A COVER-UP” | Hundreds lambast BART Board over New Year’s Day shooting incident (Jan. 8 )
• RIOTING IN OAKLAND | Police anger pours onto city streets as outrage over BART shooting violently erupts (Jan. 8 )
• Breaking News Updates: BART shooting protesters start dumpster fire, vandalize Oakland police car (Jan. 7)
  
• Oakland Councilwoman calls Grant shooting an “execution” | Drumbeat for criminal charges against BART cop intensifies (Jan. 7)
• BART cop who shot, killed unarmed rider resigns (Jan. 7)
• “He never texted back” | Family prepares for police shooting victim’s funeral as outrage goes national (Jan. 7)
  
• $25 Million claim filed against BART as officer identified and new shooting video is made public (Jan. 6)
  
• Criticism mounts as home videos show BART cop shooting, killing unarmed rider (Jan. 4)
• OUR OPINION: PEOPLE ARE ANGRY: Damning home video and cover-up allegations keeps BART on the hot seat for shooting rider (Jan. 5)