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OAKLAND — Nearly 1,000 people filled the street in front of Oakland City Hall on Thursday evening. They gathered to vent, pray, and ask how a Los Angeles jury could find Johannes Mehserle, a white former BART police officer, guilty of involuntary manslaughter for fatally shooting Oscar Grant III, an unarmed, 22-year-old black man from Hayward, in the back.At first, the crowd was electric, but not volatile. To respond with violence would dishonor Grant's memory, they said. Hundreds of Oakland police officers watched and endured taunts, spits and rocks from a small group that tried, but failed, to incite other...

(07-09) 13:56 PDT OAKLAND -- The attorney for Johannes Mehserle, the former BART police officer convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Oscar Grant, released a handwritten letter today that Mehserle composed Sunday - four days before a Los Angeles jury came back with its verdict in the case. The full text of the letter released by defense attorney Michael Rains follows: Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/09/BAQB1EC3T3.DTL&tsp=1#ixzz0tDspBOYL

OAKLAND — Mike Issa couldn't believe the "gift" last night's looters left behind in his ransacked Jitters & Shakes coffee shop at 21st and Webster streets in downtown Oakland. "You know what I say to the people who did this?" he asked, slapping a cracked cell phone on his counter. "I say, I have this phone here that you left when you smashed my store. That's a gift you've given me. Thank you for doing that. I can't wait to give this to the police." Issa was one of dozens of downtown business owners who arrived at work to find...

The U.S. Department of Justice will conduct an independent review of the Johannes Mehserle case in order to determine whether or not the shooting merits federal prosecution, according the department. "The Justice Department has been closely monitoring the state's investigation and prosecution," the department said in a statement. "The Civil Rights Division, the U.S. Attorney's Office, and the FBI have an open investigation into the fatal shooting and, at the conclusion of the state's prosecution, will conduct an independent review of the facts and circumstances to determine whether the evidence warrants federal prosecution." Congresswoman Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, said she has...

(07-09) 09:59 PDT OAKLAND -- Law-enforcement officers arrested 83 people during Thursday night's protests in downtown Oakland over the involuntary manslaughter conviction of former BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle for the shooting death of train rider Oscar Grant, police said today. The rallies began peacefully but soon degenerated into lawlessness, during which protesters looted businesses, sprayed anti-police graffiti on storefronts, set trash bins on fire and clashed with police wearing gas masks and riot helmets and carrying batons, authorities said. Police from agencies throughout the Bay Area were called in to help Oakland officers. Those arrested were booked on suspicion...

<p>Oakland (CNN) -- A verdict has been reached in the trial of a former police officer who is white and who is accused of killing an unarmed black man in Oakland, California, according to a superior court spokesman. The verdict will be read at 4 p.m. (7 p.m. ET).</p>

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A white former transit officer was convicted of involuntary manslaughter Thursday in the shooting death of an unarmed black man on an Oakland train platform in a 2009 encounter that set off days of rioting in the city. The jury deliberated more than six hours over two days to convict Johannes Mehserle in the killing of 22-year-old Oscar Grant, who was shot to death as he lay face-down.

It was an exodus just a few ticks short of panic. As word spread throughout Oakland around 2:30 p.m. that a verdict had been reached in the Johannes Mehserle murder trial, the downtown streets suddenly flooded with workers rushing out of their workplaces to go home. The normally placid lanes became clogged, people hurried along the sidewalk, and there was an almost electric air of worried anticipation. BART trains streaming in and out of downtown were jammed. At the downtown federal building, announcements were made over loudspeakers to tell everyone to go home. At many of the big businesses throughout...

An involuntary manslaughter verdict against a white former transit cop who killed an unarmed black man was met with protests that erupted in violence Thursday night in Oakland, Calif. The trial over the shooting took place in Los Angeles, where prosecutors had pressed for a murder conviction in the New Year's Day 2009 Oakland train-station killing that was recorded on video.

As the verdict reached the streets, hundreds converged in downtown Oakland for mostly peaceful protests before swelling to a crowd of more than a thousand, with a hard-core splinter group of rioters clashing with police and wreaking havoc in downtown. By late evening, hundreds of law enforcement officers from across the Bay Area had descended downtown to help local police quell the protesters. Wearing black masks, many looted stores, smashed windows and rolled trash bins into the streets while setting them on fire. At one point, protesters began throwing M-1000 fireworks at law enforcement officers and other demonstrators. Stephen Allen,...

On January 1st 2009 Officer Johannes Mehserle shot Oscar Grant in the back after he was already handcuffed and on the ground. Today they announced that officer Mehserle was guilty of "involuntary manslaughter, not murder. After hours of peaceful protesting the energy and frustration of the crowd became too intense to express in words. In this video you can see some windows being smashed and people looting a Foot Locker. This is a rough cut. More video to come.

The jury has found former BART officer Johannes Mesherle guilty of involuntary manslaughter. Mehserle was accused of murdering an unarmed man, Oscar Grant, on a BART platform on New Year's Day 2009. Four years in state prison is the maximum sentence Mehserle can receive.

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) -- Oakland police say people have broken into an athletic store near the city's downtown as hundreds of people protest the verdict in the case of a former transit officer. Johannes Mehserle was convicted of involuntary manslaughter on Thursday in Los Angeles in the videotaped shooting death of an unarmed black man on an Oakland train platform.

(07-08) 14:59 PDT LOS ANGELES -- Jurors have reached a verdict in the murder trial of former BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle, who shot and killed unarmed train passenger Oscar Grant on Jan. 1, 2009. The verdict is scheduled to be read in Judge Robert Perry's downtown Los Angeles courtroom at about 4 p.m. today, said a source with knowledge of the matter. Jurors were given four options during deliberations. They could convict Mehserle, 28, of second-degree murder, voluntary manslaughter or involuntary manslaughter, or they could acquit him. The panel began deliberations Friday, but had to start from scratch Wednesday...

OAKLAND -- As the hour approaches for a jury to decide the fate of former BART police officer Johannes Mehserle, thousands of Oaklanders hope to experience what seemed so unlikely to them 19 months ago: Justice for Oscar Grant. But what is justice? What constitutes a just response to the killing of the 22-year-old grocery store worker, a man memorialized in hip-hop songs and murals, discussed in barbershops and living rooms as an iconic victim of police brutality that some say happens all too often? Grant was among a group of revelers returning from San Francisco on New Year's night...

LOS ANGELES — Closing arguments on both sides in the Johannes Mehserle murder trial are now complete. Judge Robert Perry will instruct jurors

For all the worry over the upcoming verdict in the trial of the former BART police officer who killed Oscar Grant, there is just as much determination in Oakland to make sure the reaction remains peaceful. From youth clubs and churches to City Hall and even groups planning protests, many people are working hard to keep the inevitable demonstrations from getting out of hand the way they did Jan. 7, 2009. That evening, rioters damaged scores of businesses and torched several cars in the downtown business district in reaction to the shooting of Grant, who was black, six days earlier...

I wrote for the Los Angeles Daily News during the Rodney King riots in 1992. I remember the first time I saw the shocking videotape of a group of officers beating and kicking a lone black motorist. Then I followed the trial of four police officers, the not-guilty verdicts, the rage and the ugliness. Six days of rioting left parts of Los Angeles charred and 54 people dead. As Oakland awaits the verdict in the trial of former BART police officer Johannes Mehserle for the 2009 New Year's Day shooting of Oscar Grant, some officials fear violence will erupt in...

LOS ANGELES - Johannes Mehserle will not be convicted of first-degree murder, a judge declared today, but jurors deciding the 28-year-old's fate will be allowed to consider every other crime, including second-degree murder, associated with a homicide. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert Perry said evidence in the case proves that the former BART police officer did not plan to kill Oscar Grant III when he shot the 22-year-old Hayward man in the back on Oakland's Fruitvale BART station platform. Perry said, however, that there is enough evidence to allow the jury to consider whether the killing was a second-degree...

Former BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle broke down and sobbed today as he described to a jury the moment he realized he had shot Oscar Grant in the back. "I didn't think I had my gun," Mehserle said. "I heard the pop. It wasn't very loud. It wasn't like a gun shot. And then I remember thinking, 'What went wrong with my Taser?' I remember looking at my gun in my right hand." Mehserle continued, "I didn't know what to think. It just shouldn't have been there." Mehserle then broke down in tears, as did his mother, who was watching...