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A former Northern California transit officer cried on the witness stand Friday while describing how he shot and killed an unarmed man on a train station platform more than five years ago. Johannes Mehserle testified in federal court in San Francisco that he meant to use his Taser rather than his gun to subdue Oscar Grant on New Year's Day in 2009. Mehserle was testifying in a civil rights lawsuit filed by Grant's father against Mehserle, the Bay Area Rapid Transit agency and other defendants.

Until now, the courts and the public have placed the responsibility for Oscar Grant's death entirely on the BART police officer who shot the unarmed passenger on an Oakland train platform. But a federal appeals court ruling could shift some of the blame to the officer's supervisor and perhaps the transit system itself. Former Officer Johannes Mehserle, who fired the shot that killed Grant on Jan. 1, 2009, served 11 months in prison for involuntary manslaughter, and is also a defendant in the damage suit by Grant's father and four of his friends. While allowing claims against Mehserle to go...

Lawsuits against BART police officers involved in the 2009 incident that left Oscar Grant shot to death will go forward after a federal appeals court declined Tuesday to grant the officers immunity as law enforcement agents. The ruling by a three-judge panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco concerned suits brought by Grant's father, who is incarcerated, and by five of his friends, who were detained with Grant at Fruitvale Station in Oakland on Jan. 1, 2009. Grant had been in a fight on a train. After then-BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle shot him in...

Harvey Weinstein’s big Oscar hopeful this summer is “Fruitvale Station,” a true story about the fatal Oakland shooting of an unarmed young black man that arrived with almost miraculous timing. Hitting theaters just as the jurors in the George Zimmerman trial were deliberating. the film won the two top prizes at the Sundance Film Festival and has become a cause celebre among critics. Activists are seizing the opportunity to promote the movie, which calls for justice and implies that nothing like it has occurred yet, though the man who shot and killed Oscar Grant has already served time in prison...

<p>I’m a 10-year regular at BART’s Fruitvale Station, and this morning noticed a movie poster for “Fruitvale Station” near the turnstiles inside the station — not far from the tragic events that inspired the film.</p> <p>“Fruitvale Station” was written and directed by Oakland’s Ryan Coogler, and covers the last day of Oscar Grant’s life before he was fatally shot by a BART police officer on New Year’s Day 2009. It won the Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award, and is set for wide release this Friday.</p>

SAN FRANCISCO -- When Johannes Mehserle shot and killed Oscar Grant III on the Fruitvale BART platform in 2009 it was a mistake and a tragedy, his attorney said Wednesday, but it wasn't a case of gross negligence that would justify his involuntary manslaughter conviction. Dylan Schaffer, who is representing Mehserle in his appeal to have his 2010 conviction overturned, said he's looked at similar cases and found manslaughter convictions only for incidents involving "extraordinary imprudence" -- a man pointing a loaded gun at someone's head, or handing a pistol muzzle-first to a drunk spouse, or an old gambling den...

A cousin of Oscar Grant, shot in the back by an Oakland police officer last month, filed a lawsuit in federal court Wednesday against the City of Oakland. Tony Jones, a 24-year-old Oakland resident, is seeking $10 million in connection with the incident that occurred close to midnight Feb. 19 on the 2000 block of 62nd Avenue. "After reviewing the police report, it is patently obvious that this shooting was unjustified, and that the police department has been working feverishly in an attempt to cover the illegitimacy of the shooting," Jones' attorney, Waukeen McCoy, said in a prepared statement. Police...

A man shot and wounded by Oakland police over the weekend is a relative of Oscar Grant, the BART passenger killed by a police officer in 2009, and was unarmed when he was shot in the back, his attorney said today. Tony Jones, 24, was shot once in the back by an Oakland officer on the 2000 block of 62nd Avenue in East Oakland about 11:45 p.m. Sunday after he ran from a van that police had stopped, according to police and Jones' attorney, Waukeen McCoy. Jones is being treated at Highland Hospital in Oakland. Police have said Jones was...

The best friend of Oscar Grant who was there the night a BART police officer fatally shot the unarmed man was shot and killed at a Hayward gas station, authorities and friends said today. Johntue Caldwell, 25, of Fremont was found behind the wheel of a car parked at the 76 gas station at West Tennyson Road and Calaroga Avenue at about 5:35 p.m. Friday, according to police and friends. The victim had been sitting in the car when at someone walked up to the vehicle and fired several rounds, said Hayward police Lt. Roger Keener. The assailant fled and...

A class action lawsuit was filed against the Oakland Police Department and the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office on Monday alleging that they violated the rights of 150 people who were arrested after former BART police officer Johannes Mehserle was sentenced last Nov. 5. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court only hours after Mesherle, 29, was released from the Los Angeles County Men’s Central Jail at about 12:30 a.m. Mehserle shot and killed Oscar Grant, a 22-year-old Hayward man who was unarmed, after Mehserle and other officers responded to reports that there was a fight on a train. Mehserle...

Former BART police officer Johannes Mehserle was released from a Los Angeles jail early today after completing his time for involuntary manslaughter for fatally shooting an unarmed passenger on New Year's Day 2009. E-mail and phone notifications made at 12:01 a.m. today said Mehserle had been released, and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's online inmate locator also said he had been released as of that time. Officials have declined to discuss specifics about Mehserle's release. Mehserle, 29, was sentenced to two years for shooting Oscar Grant in the back while the 22-year-old Hayward man lay face down on the...

More than 150 people, many carrying signs critical of police, are marching down International Boulevard in Oakland en route to a rally protesting the prison release of the officer who killed Hayward resident Oscar Grant two years ago. The crowd has been chanting ``We are all Oscar Grant,'' and ``The people united will never be defeated.'' They are also carrying a mock casket to symbolize Grant's death at the hands of former BART police officer Johannes Mehserle, 29. The protest has been peaceful so far and the crowd was heeding the words of Keith Muhammad of the Nation of Islam....

OAKLAND -- An arbitrator today overturned BART's firing of Marysol Domenici, a police officer who had been accused of lying to investigators and an Alameda County judge about another officer's killing of unarmed train rider Oscar Grant. Although BART never accused Domenici of using excessive force, she became a focus of some of the community outrage stirred by the case because she helped detain Grant before he was shot by former Officer Johannes Mehserle. A jury convicted Mehserle in July of involuntary manslaughter for the Jan. 1, 2009, killing at BART's Fruitvale Station in Oakland. He was sentenced to two...

7:45 p.m.: Police arresting people at 7th Avenue and East 17th StreetPolice have announced to the crowd that they are going to begin arresting people. They are telling protesters not to resist and to follow officers' orders.Officers are using wristbands to secure people's hands. People are surrendering and allowing themselves to be cuffed. A few people are on the ground.Police are declaring the area a crime scene."Do not resist arrest," police are saying. "You will not be hurt in any way."Someone has lit a trash can on fire, and an officer is putting the fire out with his boot.At least...

(11-05) 19:18 PDT OAKLAND -- A couple of hundred protesters angered by the two-year sentence handed down for former BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle surged into the streets of downtown Oakland tonight, marching past Lake Merritt and smashing car windows as police stood by in case severe violence breaks out. The crowd started walking south on 14th Street at about 6:25 p.m. Several in the crowd said they were headed to the Fruitvale BART station, which is about three miles from City Hall. The station is where Mehserle shot Oscar Grant, an unarmed train rider, early Jan. 1, 2009. At...

Oakland officials said they are ready if things get unruly Friday night in the wake of what some protesters have called the lenient sentencing of a former BART police officer for the fatal shooting of an unarmed man. Johannes Mehserle, 28, was sentenced Friday by a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge to two years in prison for the shooting of Oscar J. Grant III on an Oakland train platform in the early morning hours of New Year's Day 2009. Mehserle, who is white, contended that he mistakenly used his firearm instead of an electric Taser weapon when he shot...

OS ANGELES -- A judge sentenced former BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle today to two years in state prison for fatally shooting unarmed train rider Oscar Grant during a video-recorded arrest in Oakland on Jan. 1, 2009. A jury in Los Angeles County, where the trial was moved, found Mehserle guilty of involuntary manslaughter in July, acquitting him of the more serious charges of murder and voluntary manslaughter. Mehserle testified that he killed Grant accidentally, after mistaking his service pistol and his Taser. The verdict meant that jurors concluded that Mehserle, 28, did not intend to kill Grant, 22, when...

1 p.m. Mehserle gets probation, 146 days served.

OAKLAND -- People seeking stiff punishment for Johannes Mehserle plan to gather Friday in downtown Oakland as the former BART police officer is sentenced for killing unarmed train rider Oscar Grant. Police and community leaders expect a smaller turnout than in past Mehserle-related demonstrations, some of which ended with vandalism and arrests. In a letter to the public, City Administrator Dan Lindheim said officials were not urging businesses to close, but instead to "use common-sense precautions and convey a sense of calm."Still, on Thursday, many downtown merchants were boarding up windows. Others had decorated their shops with photos of Grant,...

I missed out on the spree looting of Footlocker and other businesses in Oakland after the Johannes Mehserle verdict. But about 200 other people seemed to be having a great time burning and smashing. Out-of-town agitators, officials said, in kind a weird throwback to establishment terminology about protests in the 60's. Only "The Man" in Oakland these days is Mayor Ron Dellums and no one can ever find him. Also a cop (ex-cop, Mehserle) is going to jail in this case, so there are all sorts of interesting twists here. One of them is another group activity, rather different from...