Jury Rejects Civil Rights Lawsuit Filed By Oscar Grant's Father
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF)_ A verdict has been reached in the civil rights lawsuit filed by the father of Oscar Grant, the 22-year-old Hayward man fatally shot by a BART police officer at the Fruitvale Station on New Year's morning of 2009. On Tuesday, the jury rejected the lawsuit filed by Grant's father.
Former BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle has testified he meant to pull out his Taser, but accidentally pulled out his gun, when restraining Grant.
The jury in the civil case found there were no deep family ties between Oscar Grant III and his father, Oscar Grant Jr., who was in prison at the time of the shooting and remains behind bars.
Jurors also answered "no" when asked on the jury form if Mehserle "acted with a purpose to harm unrelated to a legitimate law enforcement objective" when he shot the younger Grant.
The verdict was read around 12:30 p.m. in the Federal Building at 450 Golden Gate Ave. in San Francisco, according to Waukeen McCoy, Grant's attorney.
Mehserle quit the BART police department one week after the shooting and was later convicted of involuntary manslaughter.
He served about half of his two-year sentence in a Los Angeles County jail.
Grant, who is serving a life sentence for a 1985 murder, sued Mehserle for unspecified damages over the loss of a familial relationship between father and son.
BART has already settled a separate lawsuit filed by the victim's mother and daughter for $2.8 million. Another civil case filed by friends of Grant who were present on the train platform was settled for $175,000.
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