Officer charged with murder in New Year's Day shooting
Tristan Dewar
Issue date: 1/30/09 Section: World
Oscar Grant, a 22-year-old grocery clerk from Hayward, Ca., was fatally shot in the early hours of New Year's Day at the Fruitvale Station stop of the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system.
The case has received increasing media coverage in the wake of the shooting, although the matter has received inconsistent attention on a nation-wide scale.
The shooting happened after Grant was pulled off the train. Grant, along with a group of other young men, was detained after a fight occurred on board the train. BART's operations control received word of the incident and dispatched five BART police officers to handle the situation at Fruitvale Station, where the train was ordered to hold.
Several video recordings taken of the account, recorded via cell phones by passengers on the train, indicate that the officers subdued Grant, who was lying facedown on the platform with his arms behind his back.
Without any apparent signs of struggle from Grant, former Officer Johannes Mehserle, aged 27 and a two-year veteran of the force, then drew his service weapon around 2:15 A.M. and fired a single shot into Grant's back. Grant died at Highland Hospital in Oakland several hours later.
Eyewitnesses say that Grant was handcuffed at one point, but that officers removed the cuffs before reporters arrived. All parties agree that Grant was unarmed. Police investigators say that Grant put up a brief struggle, but was entirely restrained at the time of the shooting.
"Officers close ranks to validate their own use of deadly force," said sophomore Sam Howard. "Knowing that fellow officers will defend your decision increases the chance that an officer will use deadly force, and it's often perceived that criminals are subhuman and not deserving of equal treatment anyway."
Mehserle resigned from the BART police force on Jan. 7, avoiding internal disciplinary action or a prompt to explain his actions.
Mehserle, without any resistance, was later arrested Jan. 13 in Nevada at the home of a friend. Mehserle and his family left California to escape death threats leveled against him after the shooting.
The case has received increasing media coverage in the wake of the shooting, although the matter has received inconsistent attention on a nation-wide scale.
The shooting happened after Grant was pulled off the train. Grant, along with a group of other young men, was detained after a fight occurred on board the train. BART's operations control received word of the incident and dispatched five BART police officers to handle the situation at Fruitvale Station, where the train was ordered to hold.
Several video recordings taken of the account, recorded via cell phones by passengers on the train, indicate that the officers subdued Grant, who was lying facedown on the platform with his arms behind his back.
Without any apparent signs of struggle from Grant, former Officer Johannes Mehserle, aged 27 and a two-year veteran of the force, then drew his service weapon around 2:15 A.M. and fired a single shot into Grant's back. Grant died at Highland Hospital in Oakland several hours later.
Eyewitnesses say that Grant was handcuffed at one point, but that officers removed the cuffs before reporters arrived. All parties agree that Grant was unarmed. Police investigators say that Grant put up a brief struggle, but was entirely restrained at the time of the shooting.
"Officers close ranks to validate their own use of deadly force," said sophomore Sam Howard. "Knowing that fellow officers will defend your decision increases the chance that an officer will use deadly force, and it's often perceived that criminals are subhuman and not deserving of equal treatment anyway."
Mehserle resigned from the BART police force on Jan. 7, avoiding internal disciplinary action or a prompt to explain his actions.
Mehserle, without any resistance, was later arrested Jan. 13 in Nevada at the home of a friend. Mehserle and his family left California to escape death threats leveled against him after the shooting.
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