Former BART officer Johannes Mehserle could get some help in court from an unlikely source: Oscar Grant's friends.
Mehserle is charged with murder for shooting 22-year-old Grant as he lay face down at the Fruitvale station on New Year's Day 2009 while he was being detained by transit officers.
According to the Chronicle's Matier and Ross, Jack Bryson, one of Grant's friends, told police during a taped interview that he heard Mehserle tell Grant that he was going to use his Taser on him just before he shot him in the back. Mehserle's lawyers have said their client accidentally pulled the trigger of his weapon, and had intended to use the Taser as they had Grant detained.
The paper also tells us that during the deposition for the Grant family's lawsuit, another friend said that Mehserle had not used racial slurs or cursed when they were detaining Grant and other African American suspects in that incident.
Mehserle's trial will be held in Los Angeles.
