Jurors shown videos in California train station shooting trial of former transit officer

Jury sees videos in Calif. train station shooting

LOS ANGELES — Videos that captured the moments leading up to the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man by a former Bay Area transit police officer were played side by side for jurors on Monday at the ex-officer’s trial.

The panel got the unique opportunity to watch all six videos, five of which were taken by passengers aboard a Bay Area Rapid Transit train New Year’s Day 2009 on an Oakland train platform. The multimedia presentation, which also included audio taken from police dispatch calls, was put together by prosecutors in hopes of giving the seven-woman, four-man jury a real-time account of what happened.

The videos are key evidence in the trial of Johannes Mehserle, 28, who is white, and has pleaded not guilty to murder for the shooting death of Oscar Grant, 22. Unlike the infamous video of the Rodney King beating, jurors in this case will see the events that lead up to the shooting from different angles. Four Los Angeles police officers were acquitted of assaulting King in 1992.

Alameda County Deputy District Attorney Dave Stein played the videos for more than 20 minutes as jurors watched intently as the first video, taken by a platform security camera, rolled and the others popped up on two large television screens. At least two of the videos taken by bystanders captured the actual shooting. The platform video is the only one of the six that runs continuously.

Meanwhile, train operator Keecha Williams testified that she received two separate calls from an intercom on the train about a fight before arriving at the Fruitvale station. Grant was involved in the fight, according to previous testimony.

Williams said a man, who turned out to be one of Grant’s friends, asked her if police were coming to the station. When she nodded yes, the man turned around and told the group to leave. Several of the men, including Grant, were soon detained by ex-officer Tony Pirone, who has been described by some witnesses as being aggressive toward the group.

Williams also countered some of Pirone’s testimony when he took the stand on Friday. Pirone claimed he was concerned that someone may be injured aboard the train from the fight and asked Williams about what happened and who was involved. Williams testified that Pirone never asked her about any fight victims or if the people being detained by him had been in the fight.

Williams also said she saw Pirone swinging his fists at someone but she couldn’t tell who it was. At that point, the noise level on the platform grew louder. She said one woman aboard the train called her on the intercom and asked her to close the doors, “because she said she didn’t want to get shot,” Williams said.

Moments later, Williams said she heard a gunshot and looked out her window.

“It was just mayhem,” she said of the scene.