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Johannes Mehserle

November 6, 2010 by · Comments Off on Johannes Mehserle 

Johannes Mehserle, Protesters angered by the sentence of two years for a former transit police officer convicted of manslaughter in the death of an unarmed man marched in Oakland, California, on Friday night.

Johannes Mehserle receive credit for time already spent in jail since he was charged in the shooting of 22-year-old, Oscar Grant on a platform January 1st 2009, a judge ruled Friday.

Mehserle could be released in about seven months under the sentencing guidelines provided by the prosecution.

Grant’s mother, Wanda Johnson, looked dazed as he left the courtroom. His family’s lawyer said he was shocked. Johnson had asked the judge to sentence him to up to 14 years in prison. She and four family members who spoke at the sentencing hearing Mehserle called “a murderer.”

“This is a slap in the face, punched in the stomach,” said John Burris, the attorney for the Grant family.

Prosecutors had sought a prison sentence, while the defense had argued for probation.

After the verdict of July, police in downtown Oakland arrested dozens of protesters angry at a variety of charges, including the lack of dispersion, resisting arrest, theft, vandalism and assault on a police officer. The city planned to extra agents on hand Friday in case they were needed, said police spokeswoman Holly J. Joshi.

About 250 people unhappy with the sentence rallied peacefully in the afternoon of Friday, said Oakland Police Chief Anthony Batts.

Officers in the area have identified some people who were arrested in July. “We’re introducing them and let them know that we know are in the crowd,” said Batts.

Protesters took to the streets Friday night, at a time turned by the police before going another direction.

Mehserle told the Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Robert Perry before sentencing on Friday that he would be willing to go to prison if the sentence made his city and family safer.

“I shot a man,” he said. “I killed a man. You should not have happened.”

Alex Alonso, a StreetGangs.com writer said appeared to mourn Mehserle times, reading his apology to the judge. Seemed to avoid looking at the family of Grant, said Alonso.

Mehserle wearing an orange prison suit, was chained by the chains around his waist, linked with his fists on the arms and legs, “said Alonso.

“I would like to take Oscar Grant, again,” said Mehserle.

A manslaughter conviction normally carries a sentence of four years, but the judge had the option of adding an “improvement” that could have made the sentence of 14 years because a firearm was used in the commission of a crime.

Mehserle, who was on duty as a police officer of Bay Area Rapid Transit, when the shooting occurred, told the court that he intended to draw and fire his Taser instead of his gun. The jury acquitted him of more serious charges of second-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter.

members of the Grant family expressed outrage after the verdict in July.

“My son was murdered. He was murdered. He was murdered. My son was murdered,” said Johnson. She and others said that blacks are too long have been victims of police abuse and a partial legal system.

The trial had been transferred from Alameda County California Los Angeles because of pretrial publicity. The shooting was captured by the camera from a spectator’s mobile phone video. The video was widely distributed online and in news broadcasts, and spurred protests and riots around Oakland.

The shooting took place after the Bay Area Rapid Transit Police were called to the Fruitvale BART station in Oakland on January 1, 2009, when passengers complained of fights on a train. Officers took several men, including the subsidy off the train when it came to Fruitvale.

The video showed Mehserle pull his gun and shot Grant in the back while another officer knelt on the unarmed man. Mehserle resigned a few days after the incident and was later arrested in Nevada.

The former official apologized to the public and describe their memories of the moments after the shooting in a handwritten letter by CNN after the verdict.

“For now and forever, I live, breathe, sleep, and not sleeping with the memory of Mr. Grant shouting ‘that threw me and I get their hands on the bullet wound in the minds of the pressure while I help said “you will be fine, ‘” Mehserle wrote in the letter. “I tried to tell him that maybe this picture would not be so bad, but I remember how sick I felt when Mr. Grant left to speak, closed his eyes and seemed to change his breathing. “

Oscar Grant

November 6, 2010 by · Comments Off on Oscar Grant 

Oscar Grant, UPDATE 16:05 ET After a day of emotional testimony from relatives tears of both Grant and Johannes Mehserle Oscar, reports Radio Youth Judge Robert Perry Mehserle handed a prison sentence of at least two years. Mehserle has already served 146 days in jail.

The AP reported that Mehserle made a ten-minute statement expressing his remorse for the death of Grant. “I want to say how deeply sorry,” the AP reported. “Nothing we say or do not heal the wound. Always regret Mr. Grant taking them.”

After a long summer spent in Los Angeles County Jail, a former BART police Mehserle Johannes is back in the courtroom of Judge Robert Perry today to receive his sentence for the murder of Oscar Grant on New Year’s Day 2009. A Los Angeles jury convicted of manslaughter Mehserle with one count of firearm improvement this summer, and the former officer is now facing 14 years in prison.

Amanda Fuentes, Chimurenga report Thandisizwe Jennifer and Courtney Bay City this morning the judge Perry read a stack of 1,000 letters urging said he received the maximum sentence to Mehserle. Pablo San Jose Mercury News’ reported that Perry Rosynsky was dismayed that many of the people who wrote to him encouraged him to give Mehserle the harshest prison term, but he seemed unfamiliar with legal terminology. No matter what Oscar Grant’s family and members of the community outrage believe their son was killed, Perry insisted that what Mehserle was convicted of manslaughter was a homicide, but not intentional.

The Citizen Bay reports that Perry seemed unlikely that Mehserle grant a new trial because his defense had requested in early October. Mehserle defense demanded a new trial based on new evidence discovered that was said that the confusion-taser gun occurred in the past, contrary to the arguments of the prosecution. Mehserle defense was based on a tale of two points that Oscar Grant and his friends represented a dangerous threat to Mehserle on the train platform, and also that Mehserle accidentally pulled his gun when he intends to draw his taser.

Judge Perry also discussed other post-trial controversy surrounding controversial jury verdict. Mehserle The jury found guilty of manslaughter and improved weapon attached to his office.

In his jury instructions, jurors were told:

If you find that the defendant is guilty of second degree murder or voluntary manslaughter misdemeanor or involuntary, then the people must decide whether the prosecution has proved further that the defendant personally used a firearm during the commission of that crime.

Judge Perry jury instructions told the jury that a person intentionally used his gun if there are weapons “in a threatening manner,” hit someone with a weapon or fired. The conviction then says Mehserle was guilty of accidental homicide, but he knew that he got his gun.

Today, however, Perry seemed receptive to the defense motion to throw the burden of improving gun controversy, which could tack on an additional sentence of ten years in jail jail sentence for involuntary manslaughter conviction. Manslaughter carries only two, three, or four years in prison. Legal experts suggested that if Perry does not pull the gun enhancement, which could allow Mehserle to serve his time for both simultaneously. If Perry pull improving firearm Mehserle could also receive probation.

Mehserle deciding prison term, Perry is expected to weigh the victim impact statements, of which the organized community response is a part. Perry also heard the testimony of Sophina Mesa, Grant’s girlfriend and mother of his daughter, six years old and the mother of Wanda Grant Johnson.

The trial was moved from the Bay Area to Los Angeles because the defense was concerned about the local community interest intense. killing Oscar Grant, who was captured in multiple camera phones and immediately uploaded to YouTube, outraged the community and led to several nights of major protests in the Bay Area.

Grant Mehserle shot in the back while Grant was face down on a train platform. He and his friends had been taken off the BART train for allegedly starting a fight, and several were in the process of being handcuffed when Mehserle drew his pistol from his holster and shot Grant.

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