BART Completes Shooting Investigation
BART says its completed its investigation
Updated 9:17 AM PST, Tue, Jan 13, 2009
Bay Area Rapid Transit police have completed their investigation into the shooting death of Oscar Grant III at the Fruitvale station early on New Year's Day, BART general manager Dorothy Dugger announced today.
Dugger said BART has given its police report to Alameda County District Attorney Tom Orloff, so "now it is the district attorney's responsibility to file charges in the case."
"We urge the district attorney to expedite its review of the evidence and bring the investigation to a conclusion," Dugger said.
Orloff has said he won't decide until the end of next week whether to file charges against BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle, who shot 22-year-old Grant around 2 a.m. on Jan. 1 after police stopped a train at the Fruitvale station following reports of a fight on board.
Orloff couldn't immediately be reached to comment on whether that time frame would change now that BART has submitted its report.
BART Police Chief Gary Gee said detectives interviewed six BART police officers who were on the Fruitvale station platform with Mehserle at the time of the shooting. He said they also interviewed 21 other people who witnessed 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 has not yet spoken with police investigators.
Gee said that 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.
He was scheduled to meet with BART investigators early last week but then postponed the meeting and on Wednesday submitted his resignation.
And the protests continued Monday. More than 100 demonstrators were in the area of Market and Powell streets in San Francisco at about 6:30 p.m. Monday evening, protesting the shooting death of Oscar Grant at the hands of a Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer on Jan. 1.
The demonstration started near BART's Civic Center station at about 5 p.m. and comes days after a violent march and protest in Oakland.
Several protesters tonight were wearing bandanas over their faces and some were screaming, "No justice, no peace."
San Francisco police officers on foot and motorcycles accompanied the demonstrators.
Officers had one entrance to the Powell Street station blocked off as of about 6:35 p.m., but the march had no major impact on traffic in the area.
BART has faced intense criticism over its handling of the shooting, which has sparked protests including one Wednesday that turned violent and resulted in more than 100 arrests and extensive vandalism to downtown Oakland.
A BART board meeting on Thursday stretched for hours as elected officials and community members vented their frustration over the shooting and the investigation. Tensions were also high at a community meeting held by BART board members on Sunday.
Dugger's announcement Monday was made just before a special BART board meeting to discuss the formation of a police oversight committee.
Bay Area Rapid Transit directors voted unanimously Monday to form a new committee to examine the transit agency's police procedures in the wake of the shooting death of Oscar Grant at the hands of former Officer Johannes Mehserle on Jan. 1.
Board members voted at the end of a public hearing at which community members criticized the way in which BART officials responded to the incident at the Fruitvale station. The public hearing was the third that BART officials have had in the last five days.
The objective of the new BART police department Review Ad Hoc Committee is to provide greater board focus on the exercise of BART police responsibilities.
The four-member committee, which will consist of 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 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 the shooting death of Grant, a 22-year-old man who was shot in the back even though he was unarmed.
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.
She said she wasn't on BART's board when the previous incidents occurred in 1992 and 2001 and she's disappointed that police procedures weren't revised after those incidents.
Sweet said the new committee "could be a farce" if it doesn't have teeth and "I don't like wasting my time."
She said, "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."
Sweet said, "I love the pressure" on BART by the public but she fears that the new committee could lose focus if the public's attention on Grant's death fades from the news.
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.
Also Monday, the U.S. Justice Department sent mediators to Oakland to help resolve tensions arising from the fatal shooting.
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 Justice Department notified Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer and Rep. Barbara Lee last Thursday in a memo.
The memo, obtained by The Associated Press, says the mediators will meet with local law enforcement and black community leaders to discuss "community racial tension." They will conduct an assessment and provide any necessary follow-up.
Sunday evening, BART board members held another community meeting in Oakland to help ease tensions surrounding the shooting, but few of the 100 or so people who attended seemed appeased by what they heard.
Most of the speakers criticized BART for what they described as the agency's slow response to the fatal shooting of 22-year-old Oscar Grant and demanded to know if Officer Johannes Mehserle would be arrested. Alameda County prosecutors, and Oakland and BART police say they still are investigating why Mehserle shot Grant, who had been detained in a station following a fight on a train.
"Why hasn't anyone with authority just arrested this guy?" asked Oakland resident Nader Bey, echoing the frustration prevalent at the more than two-hour-long meeting.
Mehserle, 27, resigned from the force before his department's internal affairs division could interview him. BART Police Chief Gary Gee pleaded for patience and said Sunday that he hoped to present the division's findings about the case to the Alameda County district attorney by week's end.
At one point during the public gathering, the second BART directors convened in three days, heated words were exchanged between Oakland City Council member Delsey Brooks and BART director Carole Ward Allen, who represents the district where Grant was shot.
Brooks said she wanted to know when the board would respond to a list of demands she and other Oakland leaders submitted on Thursday. The list includes identifying the other officers who were present during the shooting and asking the state attorney general and U.S. attorney to take over the investigation.
"When are you going to take some action, Carole, some real action? It is clear something has to be done..."
Allen, who earlier had said the board was doing its best to satisfy the public's desire for information without compromising the investigation, left the room visibly agitated.
Alameda County District Attorney Tom Orloff says he will decide within two weeks whether to bring criminal charges. On Saturday, Attorney General Jerry Brown said he would dispatch a state prosecutor to monitor Alameda County's investigation.
The BART Board of Directors has scheduled a special meeting for Monday afternoon to discuss creating an oversight committee that would have responsibility for monitoring police-related incidents.
Copyright Associated Press
First Published: Jan 11, 2009 6:25 PM PST
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