Mar 23, 2009 11:32 am US/Pacific
BART Officer Case Delayed Due To Oakland Shootings
OAKLAND (CBS 5 / AP / BCN) ―
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Ex-BART officer Johannes Mehserle sits in court during a prior hearing.
AP
The preliminary hearing scheduled for a Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer accused of murdering an unarmed man was postponed by a judge Monday in the wake of the unrelated killings of four Oakland police officers over the weekend.
Attorneys Alison Berry Wilkinson and Bill Rapoport said Alameda County Superior Court Judge C. Don Clay told prosecutors and defense attorneys that the hearing would be pushed back to May 18.
Former BART Officer Johannes Mehserle has pleaded not guilty to the murder of 22-year-old Oscar Grant III.
Mehserle was charged with murder for the fatal shooting of Grant on the platform of the Fruitvale BART station early on New Year's Day.
Tension between police and the community have risen steadily since Grant's shooting, and some feared continuing with the preliminary examination just two days after the officers were shot would exacerbate the situation.
In the shootings Saturday, 26-year-old parolee Lovelle Mixon shot and killed Oakland police Sgt. Mark Dunakin, 40, Sgt. Ervin Romans, 43, and Sgt. Daniel Sakai, 35. He also shot Officer John Hege, 41, who was declared brain-dead.
Grant's family said Monday that they were not pleased with the delay in the case. About 50 protesters also held a rally in front of the Oakland courthouse to voice their objections to the hearing's postponement.
"We think that this is the latest action by the DA to cover up this crime," said protester Ronald Cruz, a law student at the University of California Berkeley.
Cruz said demonstrators don't believe Mehserle should receive special treatment because he was a police officer. He said trying Mehserle for murder is the only thing that can repair relations between police and the community.
(© 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 This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.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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