Ex-BART Cop Mehserle Wins Excessive Force Case
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) - A federal jury in San Francisco has rejected an Oakland man's claim that former BART police officer Johannes Mehserle and four other officers used excessive force when they arrested and restrained him at a BART station in 2008.
The seven-member civil jury unanimously ruled that Mehserle and the other officers were not liable for use of excessive force or for alleged retaliation against Kenneth Carrethers, 43, for exercising his constitutional free-speech rights.
The jurors also turned down claims that Mehserle had beaten Carrethers and maliciously alleged that he had threatened an officer and resisted arrest. The charges against Carrethers were later dropped.
The incident occurred six and a half weeks before Mehserle fatally shot Oscar Grant of Hayward at BART's Fruitvale station on New Year's Day in 2009.
Mehserle, 29, who said he accidentally used his service gun instead of a stun gun, was later convicted of involuntary manslaughter and served about a year of a two-year sentence.
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