Jan 2, 2009 12:41 am US/Pacific
Police Fatally Shoot Man At Oakland BART Station
OAKLAND (CBS 5 / KCBS / AP / BCN) ―
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The entrance to a BART station.
CBS
A 22-year-old man died Thursday after being shot on an Oakland train station platform by a transit agency police officer responding to reports of fighting on an arriving train, officials said.
The Bay Area Rapid Transit officer's gun went off while police were trying to restrain 22-year-old Oscar Grant at BART's Fruitvale station on East 12th Street around 2:15 a.m., agency spokesman Jim Allison said.
Grant was taken to to Highland Hospital -- where he later died from his wounds at 9:13 a.m., according to Mike Yost, supervising coroner investigator with the Alameda County coroner's bureau.
Authorities said they were still investigating whether the gun was fired on purpose or accidentally.
"It's clear that it was a volatile situation with young men who were arguing and in fact had continued to argue even in the presence of multiple police officers," Allison said.
Five officers had gathered on the platform as the train arrived from San Francisco following reports that two groups of men were fighting on the train near the West Oakland station two stops earlier, officials said.
The men continued to yell at each other after the Dublin/Pleasanton-bound train stopped, and police were in the process of separating the men when the bullet struck Grant, Allison said.
No one involved in the alleged fighting was arrested following the shooting, although two men were detained for questioning and later released. Police shut down the Fruitvale station until about 2:50 a.m. to collect physical evidence after the incident.
Officials have not publicly identified the officer, who has served on the force for just under two years.
The officer was placed on standard administrative leave as authorities investigate whether proper police procedures had been followed and whether the shooting was a crime, Allison said.
The shooting was being investigated by the East Bay Regional Parks police, who indicated that their probe was on-going.
(© CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. The Associated Press and Bay City News contributed to this report.)
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