Local News

OAKLAND (CBS 5 / AP / BCN) ― Bay Area Rapid Transit officials on Monday completed their preliminary investigation of the New Year's Day fatal shooting of an unarmed black man by a white police officer that was captured on amateur videotape and forwarded the results to the district attorney. 

BART Police Chief Gary Gee said his department did not make a recommendation on whether charges should be filed against 27-year-old officer Johannes Mehserle.

"Now it is the district attorney's responsibility (on whether) to file charges in the case," BART general manager Dorothy Dugger said at a news conference. "We urge the district attorney to expeditiously review all the evidence available to him and bring this investigation to a conclusion."

Witnesses said Mehserle fired into the back of 22-year-old Oscar Grant III while the man was lying facedown on a train platform at Oakland's Fruitvale BART station. Grant and others were pulled off a train after reports of fighting, as New Year's Eve revelers were shuttling home after midnight.

The shooting was captured on several home video and cell phone cameras and has been widely viewed on television and the Internet.

BART officials said their investigation report included interviews with seven officers and 14 witnesses at the scene as well as copies of videotapes of the incident. In addition, detectives interviewed more than 40 of the 150 people who called BART's tip line with information about the shooting.
 
Mehserle, who has since resigned from the force, filled out a basic incident report after the shooting but has refused to be interviewed by investigators, Gee said.

On the night of the shooting, Mehserle asked his attorney to come to the scene and then invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to speak with detectives, Gee added. 

Alameda County District Attorney Tom Orloff said Monday that the former officer had also not spoken with district attorney's investigators. 

Orloff had previously said he hoped to decide by next week whether to bring criminal charges. But after receiving BART's report, Orloff said that time frame could change.

The transit agency's submission of its police report "may help me speed it up," he said.

Orloff said BART had done a "good job" in its investigation but that his office still needed to conduct additional witness interviews.

Mehserle's attorney, Christopher Miller of Sacramento, did not immediately return messages left by reporters seeking comment.

Some have speculated that the officer may have intended to fire a stun gun but accidentally pulled his firearm instead.

Gee said Monday that Mehserle did have a stun gun at the time of the shooting located on the opposite side of his belt from the firearm and did not use it. The chief declined to discuss any other specifics of the report, including whether investigators found the shooting was intentional or accidental.

"It is our hope that this brings everyone one step closer to finding out all relevant details and ensuring this type of incident never repeats itself," Jesse Sekhon, president of the BART Police Officers Association, said in a statement after the news conference.

The shooting has inflamed long-running tensions between law enforcement authorities and many African-American residents in Oakland. Hundreds of protesters have taken to the streets calling for the prosecution of Mehserle, with one rally last Wednesday night spiraling into violence and resulting in more than 120 arrests and 45 businesses damaged in downtown Oakland.
 
Just days after that violent Oakland protest, more than 100 demonstrators took to San Francisco's streets in the area of Market and Powell on Monday evening to protest Grant's death.

The demonstration started near BART's Civic Center station with some protesters wearing bandanas over their faces while screaming, "No justice, no peace." San Francisco police officers on foot and motorcycles monitored the demonstrators.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Justice Department has sent mediators to Oakland to help resolve the tensions, according to a memo obtained Monday by the Associated Press that notified U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee and U.S. Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer about it.

The officials are from the department's Community Relations Service, which was created by the 1964 Civil Rights Act to help resolve and prevent racial and ethnic conflict and violence.

The memo said the mediators will meet with local law enforcement and black community leaders, conduct an assessment and provide any necessary follow-up.

"The whole world saw what happened. It's a shame and disgrace that this person (Mehserle) has not been arrested," Lee, D-Oakland, said in an interview Monday from Washington, D.C.

Asked whether a federal civil rights investigation might be called for, Lee said she wanted to see how the local investigation proceeded but added: "I'm ready to take the next step whatever that might be."

The Oakland Police Department also has launched an independent probe of the shooting, and California Attorney General Jerry Brown said he would assign a state prosecutor to monitor the local investigation.

The announcement of the conclusion of BART's internal probe occured shortly before the agency's board of directors met in special session and voted unanimously to set up a special oversight committee to monitor the BART police department.

The four-member committee, which will consist of board members Carole Ward Allen of Oakland, Lynette Sweet and Tom Radulovich of San Francisco and Joel Keller of Antioch, will receive timely briefings on major police incidents and meet with elected officials and community members to discuss their concerns.

It also will review existing BART Police Department policy and procedures, including general orders and operational directives, as well as basic training and certification requirements.

In addition, it will survey the structure of civilian police review boards and independent auditors for Bay Area police departments and major transit agencies to see if they can provide a model for BART.

After the vote, Sweet said, "I hope the board has the courage" to make real changes in the way the BART Police Department operates and doesn't just gloss over the community's outrage over Grant's death.

Sweet, who is black, said the shooting death of Grant was "the third killing of an unarmed black man" by a BART police officer in the last 17 years. 

While Sweet wasn't on BART's board when the previous incidents occurred in 1992 and 2001, she expressed disappointment that police procedures weren't revised after those incidents. 

"I love the pressure" on BART by the public, Sweet added, but said she fears that the new committee could lose focus and "become a farce" if the public's attention on Grant's death fades from the news.

"There has to be a citizen's oversight committee that's outside the BART world" and "we've got to be committed to do better," she said.

Allen said she's hopeful that the new committee will lead the way to better police policies and procedures.

"I hope we never again have an incident in which a police officer takes the life of a customer or a young person," Allen said.

Board members voted to create the committee at the end of a public hearing Monday — the third in five days — where BART faced intense criticism over its handling of the shooting. 

At a similar public meeting on Sunday, angry Oakland residents railed against what they called a slow response by the transit agency and wanted to know if Mehserle would be arrested for Grant's death.

A frustrated Oakland City Councilwoman Desley Brooks complained to the BART board that it had not moved a step forward since the shooting incident took place more than a week ago.

"You responded only because a community got outraged," Brooks said.

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