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SAN FRANCISCO -- When Johannes Mehserle shot and killed Oscar Grant III on the Fruitvale BART platform in 2009 it was a mistake and a tragedy, his attorney said Wednesday, but it wasn't a case of gross negligence that would justify his involuntary manslaughter conviction. Dylan Schaffer, who is representing Mehserle in his appeal to have his 2010 conviction overturned, said he's looked at similar cases and found manslaughter convictions only for incidents involving "extraordinary imprudence" -- a man pointing a loaded gun at someone's head, or handing a pistol muzzle-first to a drunk spouse, or an old gambling den...

BART would get authority to ban those who repeatedly break the law -- fare cheats, vandals or protesters disrupting train service -- from entering its stations, under a bill passed by state lawmakers and sent to the governor's desk. Assembly Bill 716 would give BART and the Sacramento and Fresno public transit systems the authority to bar someone cited on three separate occasion over 60 days for infractions on a train, bus, station, or stop.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Vandals damaged vending machines at BART's Glen Park Station in San Francisco on Thursday night, hours after at least two dozen people were arrested during a protest at the Powell Street Station. About eight to 12 men dressed in black hoodies came into the Glen Park Station and used hammers to smash fare gates, eight Clipper Card readers and ticket vending machines at about 10 p.m.,

A crowd of chanting protesters converged on the Powell Street BART Station Thursday night and confronted police in riot gear who formed a wall to block them from approaching the pay gates and then drove them outside as they closed the station. At least 50 protesters chanted "no justice, no peace" confronted officers and several of them fought with police as they were arrested in yet another case of commuting delays and havoc on the besieged system. The demonstrators, who dubbed themselves "No Justice No BART," had promised to lie down in front of the turnstiles at the downtown San...

The recent protests against BART have cost the agency $300,000, and with another event planned for Thursday, that tab is likely to increase. Since July 3, when BART police officers shot and killed 45-year-old transient Charles Hill at the Civic Center Station, the transit agency has been besieged by a series of protest events aimed at disrupting the evening commute. The protests increased in frequency after Aug. 11, when the agency shut down cell phone service in its downtown stations to prevent a planned gathering. So far, the bill for dealing with those protests has cost BART $300,000, with most...

Organizers affiliated with Anonymous, the loose-knit group behind the recent protests against BART police in San Francisco, are asking demonstrators to take a less disruptive approach when they assemble at 5 p.m. today by staying off train platforms and out of busy Market Street. One message, distributed by "AnonyOps" on Twitter, expressed concern about how the protests - which have prompted BART to shut down stations and have angered many commuters - are being received by the public. The communique suggests an activist group in the throes of a mid-strife crisis. The message told demonstrators to gather outside Civic Center...

BART officials are again warning commuters that they may close stations in downtown San Francisco or alter service in response to a demonstration planned for 5 p.m. tonight at Civic Center Station. This is the third consecutive Monday that activists plan to rally against BART . . .

San Francisco -- As far as the online activist movement Anonymous is concerned, its Monday afternoon BART disruptions have been rousing successes. Thousands of inconvenienced commuters disagree. So does San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr. "I don't want this to be construed as delivering a threat," Suhr said, "but enough is enough. They made their point, and they are now losing in the court of public opinion. We don't feel that we took appropriate action at the appropriate pace (on Monday). The next response will be quicker." Good. Fun's fun, but the reality is, this is not a widespread protest....

The hacker group Anonymous stepped up its BART attack Wednesday, posting a partially nude photo of a man they say is the transit agency's chief media spokesman, Linton Johnson. Anonymous has been calling for the resignation of Johnson, who suggested that BART officials turn off cellphone service at underground stations earlier this month to thwart a protest against transit agency police. The posting of the photo occurred as the BART board agreed to become the first public transit system in America to develop a policy regulating when to block cellphone service to protect public safety. It will take two to...

The Chronicle's Will Kane, one of the reporters covering last week's BART demonstrations, overheard more or less - the longer quotes in the following aren't verbatim, but approximations of what was said, says Kane - the following exchange: Angry older male protester to officer: "You cop, you're a pig. You bitch. You're a bitch. That's all." Angry older female protester to angry older male protester: "Excuse me, sir, can you please not use a derogatory term for females, even when you're insulting a cop." Angry older male: "Oh, OK. I am sorry. You're right." African American male cop, at whom...

OAKLAND -- Hackers carried out the second cyber-attack on BART within the past week today, breaking into the website of the union that represents the transit system's rank-and-file police and releasing a roster of 102 officers along with their home addresses, e-mail account addresses and passwords for the site. The roster was published on a separate website, where the hackers wrote, "Yet another success." Hackers have said they will strike back at BART for temporarily shutting down underground cellular and wi-fi service Thursday, a move BART made to try to quell a planned antipolice protest in downtown San Francisco. The...

In the midst of the uprisings known as the Arab Spring, one of the recurring tactics used by repressive regimes to prevent widespread demonstrations was to cut off cell phone service and shut down social media sites. Thus, there is more than a hint of irony surrounding the decision last Thursday by Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) officials to cut off underground cell phone service at several train stations. The reason for the cutoff? To disrupt the coordination of a flash mob aiming to interrupt train service as a protest for the killing of a 45-year-old man by BART transit...

LINK ONLY view live news feed of protest: http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/livenow?id=8308260#&cmp=twi-kgo-video-8308260

SAN FRANCISCO -An illegal, Orwellian violation of free-speech rights? Or just a smart tactic to protect train passengers' safety from rowdy would-be demonstrators during a busy evening commute? The question resonated Saturday in San Francisco and beyond as details emerged of Bay Area Rapid Transit officials' decision to cut off underground cell phone service for a few hours at some stations Thursday. Commuters at stations from downtown to the city's main airport were affected as BART officials sought to tactically thwart a planned protest over the recent fatal shooting of a 45-year-old man by transit police. Two days later, the...

San Francisco - Transit officials said Friday they blocked cell phone reception in San Francisco stations for three hours to disrupt a planned demonstrations over a police shooting. Officials with the Bay Area Rapid Transit system, better known as BART, said they turned off the electricity to cell phone towers in four stations from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday. The move was made after BART learned that protesters planned to use mobile devices to coordinate a demonstration on train platforms. (Snip) The statement noted that it’s illegal to demonstrate on the platform or aboard the trains. BART said it

The decision by Bay Area Rapid Transit officials to cut off cellphone service Thursday evening – to forestall a planned protest – raises a fundamental question: Do Americans have a basic right to digital free speech or to digitally organized assembly? Because July protests against BART police shootings had turned violent, BART officials took the unusual step to protect public safety, they said. The tactic may have worked: No protests took place Thursday night at BART stations. Temporarily shutting down cell service and beefing up police patrols were "great tool[s] to utilize for this specific purpose," BART police Lt. Andy...

BART officials acknowledged this afternoon that they shut down cell phone and wireless data service in its downtown San Francisco stations to disrupt a planned protest. Their announcement sparked denunciations from civil libertarians and the apparent threat of a cyber-attack on the BART website. A statement posted on the transit agency's website said the communications blackout was ordered in the interest of public safety: "Organizers planning to disrupt BART service on August 11, 2011 stated they would use mobile devices to coordinate their disruptive activities and communicate about the location and number of BART Police," the statement reads. "A civil...

A class action lawsuit was filed against the Oakland Police Department and the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office on Monday alleging that they violated the rights of 150 people who were arrested after former BART police officer Johannes Mehserle was sentenced last Nov. 5. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court only hours after Mesherle, 29, was released from the Los Angeles County Men’s Central Jail at about 12:30 a.m. Mehserle shot and killed Oscar Grant, a 22-year-old Hayward man who was unarmed, after Mehserle and other officers responded to reports that there was a fight on a train. Mehserle...

Former BART police officer Johannes Mehserle was released from a Los Angeles jail early today after completing his time for involuntary manslaughter for fatally shooting an unarmed passenger on New Year's Day 2009. E-mail and phone notifications made at 12:01 a.m. today said Mehserle had been released, and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's online inmate locator also said he had been released as of that time. Officials have declined to discuss specifics about Mehserle's release. Mehserle, 29, was sentenced to two years for shooting Oscar Grant in the back while the 22-year-old Hayward man lay face down on the...

More than 150 people, many carrying signs critical of police, are marching down International Boulevard in Oakland en route to a rally protesting the prison release of the officer who killed Hayward resident Oscar Grant two years ago. The crowd has been chanting ``We are all Oscar Grant,'' and ``The people united will never be defeated.'' They are also carrying a mock casket to symbolize Grant's death at the hands of former BART police officer Johannes Mehserle, 29. The protest has been peaceful so far and the crowd was heeding the words of Keith Muhammad of the Nation of Islam....

Since we started the Let's Go to the Morgue! series, the most frequent request has been BART photos. I've received separate suggestions to search the archives for Transbay Tube assembly images, photos of construction on Market Street and confirmation of the legend that Richard Nixon once rode on BART during a campaign stop. You can see all of the above in this week's special Let's Go to the Morgue! extended BART edition -- the perfect way to kill 19 minutes while you wait for the next Dublin/Pleasanton train! Thanks to Chronicle photo editor Rick Romagosa for cleaning up the photos...

OAKLAND -- Two men arrested on suspicion of looting following a downtown rally after the verdict in the Oscar Grant slaying were ordered to pay $25,000 each to the owner of a jewelry store that was robbed, city officials announced Wednesday. The city filed a lawsuit in October against Terry Williams, 33, of Oakland, and Gerald Dugas, 20, of Castro Valley. They were at the scene of a July 8 rally to protest the verdict of involuntary manslaughter returned against former BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle, who shot and killed Grant on a train platform early of the morning of...

One year later, former Congressman Bart Stupak is still feeling the effects of the critical role he played in healthcare reform. In an interview with ‘The Atlantic,’ Stupak said he still gets “accosted” by angry citizens. Stupak, a pro-life Democrat from Michigan who led early opposition to the Healthcare Reform Bill based on its abortion language, eventually reached a compromise with the White House that garnered pro-life support and led to the bill’s passage. “Someone will come out and just bitch me out,” said Stupak, who received a death threat the day after Obama signed the bill into law. “It’s...

SAN FRANCISCO -- The seats of some well used methods of public transportation have been analyzed by a biologist and the results might keep commuters on their feet. A supervisor with San Francisco State University's biology lab recently tested the bacterial content of a random BART seat and a Muni seat. The Bay Citizen commissioned the study. On Muni's plastic seats she found two forms of harmless bacteria, and after using an alcohol wipe on the seat no bacteria was detected. But the cloth seats on BART told an entirely different story: tests of the seats on BART revealed fecal...

Carrie Nee prefers to stand during her half-hour commute on BART from San Leandro to downtown San Francisco. Although the trains’ blue fabric seats are plush and comfortable, Ms. Nee refuses to sit on them. As Bob Franklin, the BART board president, acknowledged, “People don’t know what’s in there.” Now they do. Fecal and skin-borne bacteria resistant to antibiotics were found in a seat on a train headed from Daly City to Dublin/Pleasanton. Further testing on the skin-borne bacteria showed characteristics of methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, the drug-resistant bacterium that causes potentially lethal infections, although Ms. Franklin cautioned that...

OAKLAND -- An arbitrator today overturned BART's firing of Marysol Domenici, a police officer who had been accused of lying to investigators and an Alameda County judge about another officer's killing of unarmed train rider Oscar Grant. Although BART never accused Domenici of using excessive force, she became a focus of some of the community outrage stirred by the case because she helped detain Grant before he was shot by former Officer Johannes Mehserle. A jury convicted Mehserle in July of involuntary manslaughter for the Jan. 1, 2009, killing at BART's Fruitvale Station in Oakland. He was sentenced to two...

(11-05) 20:30 PDT OAKLAND -- More than 100 protesters angered by the two-year sentence handed down to former BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle were arrested Friday night after marching from downtown Oakland into a residential area south of Lake Merritt, where mobs smashed about a dozen car windshields and a police officer's gun was snatched. The marchers headed out of downtown after a peaceful rally outside City Hall, where as many as 500 people sang songs and heard speeches denouncing the sentence Mehserle received earlier in the day for the fatal shooting of unarmed BART rider Oscar Grant. About 200...

Oakland officials said they are ready if things get unruly Friday night in the wake of what some protesters have called the lenient sentencing of a former BART police officer for the fatal shooting of an unarmed man. Johannes Mehserle, 28, was sentenced Friday by a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge to two years in prison for the shooting of Oscar J. Grant III on an Oakland train platform in the early morning hours of New Year's Day 2009. Mehserle, who is white, contended that he mistakenly used his firearm instead of an electric Taser weapon when he shot...

OAKLAND -- Office buildings are emptying and protesters are gathering in downtown Oakland in anticipation of demonstrations today over the two-year prison term handed down to former BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle for killing Oscar Grant. Grant's family and supporters expressed outrage at the sentence, saying it should have been closer to the potential maximum of 14 years. "The whole system is guilty!" a group of about 20 people chanted near the corner of 14th Street and Broadway, as hundreds of other demonstrators streamed into the area and to nearby City Hall. Many wore "Justice for Oscar Grant" T-shirts. A...

OS ANGELES -- A judge sentenced former BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle today to two years in state prison for fatally shooting unarmed train rider Oscar Grant during a video-recorded arrest in Oakland on Jan. 1, 2009. A jury in Los Angeles County, where the trial was moved, found Mehserle guilty of involuntary manslaughter in July, acquitting him of the more serious charges of murder and voluntary manslaughter. Mehserle testified that he killed Grant accidentally, after mistaking his service pistol and his Taser. The verdict meant that jurors concluded that Mehserle, 28, did not intend to kill Grant, 22, when...

1 p.m. Mehserle gets probation, 146 days served.

(CNSNews.com) - Several Democrats say pro-life conservatives have it wrong: They say the $160 million taxpayer dollars going to fund Pennsylvania's new high-risk insurance pool will not fund abortion, except in cases of rape or incest, or where the "life of the woman would be endangered." As CNSNews.com reported on Wednesday, pro-life conservatives and Republicans have reacted furiously to a report that the Obama administration has approved funding for Pennsylvania’s new high-risk insurance pool, which would directly pay for abortions.

Slowed down video shows officer Mehserle bringing his left hand towards his pistol just before shooting Oscar Grant in the back, yet he fires the gun before his left hand has reached a support position. If he knew he was firing his pistol instead of his Taser, he would never have done this, and the video shows why. The recoiling pistol whacks Mehserle's left hand, which he then jerks upwards, away from the impact: The fatal second (37;05 – 37;29 of KTVU’s highlighted cell phone video of the shooting, slowed to 1/2 second a frame). Red circle (added) shows the...

LOS ANGELES -- The U.S. Department of Justice will conduct an independent review of the Johannes Mehserle case in order to determine whether or not the shooting merits federal prosecution, according the department. "The Justice Department has been closely monitoring the state's investigation and prosecution," the department said in a statement. "The Civil Rights Division, the U.S. Attorney's Office, and the FBI have an open investigation into the fatal shooting and, at the conclusion of the state's prosecution, will conduct an independent review of the facts and circumstances to determine whether the evidence warrants federal prosecution."

OAKLAND — Mike Issa couldn't believe the "gift" last night's looters left behind in his ransacked Jitters & Shakes coffee shop at 21st and Webster streets in downtown Oakland. "You know what I say to the people who did this?" he asked, slapping a cracked cell phone on his counter. "I say, I have this phone here that you left when you smashed my store. That's a gift you've given me. Thank you for doing that. I can't wait to give this to the police." Issa was one of dozens of downtown business owners who arrived at work to find...

TACOMA, Wash. - The vandalism of a police car in Tacoma is apparently part of a protest against an Oakland, Calif., case that raised racial tensions. A Tacoma police officer awoke about 2:30 a.m. Friday to the sound of windows being smashed in the patrol car parked outside his home. The officer chased off two men wearing hooded sweat shirts. Canine units were called to the scene to try and track the vandals. The Tacoma police car has extensive damage. Two tires were slashed, a side window and the back window were smashed. The police car had also been spray-painted...

The U.S. Department of Justice will conduct an independent review of the Johannes Mehserle case in order to determine whether or not the shooting merits federal prosecution, according the department. "The Justice Department has been closely monitoring the state's investigation and prosecution," the department said in a statement. "The Civil Rights Division, the U.S. Attorney's Office, and the FBI have an open investigation into the fatal shooting and, at the conclusion of the state's prosecution, will conduct an independent review of the facts and circumstances to determine whether the evidence warrants federal prosecution." Congresswoman Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, said she has...

LOS ANGELES -- The U.S. Department of Justice will conduct an independent review of the Johannes Mehserle case in order to determine whether or not the shooting merits federal prosecution, according the department. "The Justice Department has been closely monitoring the state's investigation and prosecution," the department said in a statement. "The Civil Rights Division, the U.S. Attorney's Office, and the FBI have an open investigation into the fatal shooting and, at the conclusion of the state's prosecution, will conduct an independent review of the facts and circumstances to determine whether the evidence warrants federal prosecution." Congresswoman Barbara Lee, D-Oakland,...

OAKLAND, Calif. -- Police arrested 86 people in downtown Oakland Thursday evening after a group of agitators turned a peaceful protest of the Johannes Mehserle verdict into a window-smashing, store looting melee. Police Chief Anthony Batts said the evening started off peacefully with about 800 people gathering downtown to voice their opinions, but at about 8 p.m., a small, hostile crowd began moving toward a police line that had been held for several hours, Batts said. About 50 people wearing black masks, bandanas, hooded sweatshirts and backpacks threw rocks and bottles at the officers, Batts said. He described the protesters...

The jury has found former BART officer Johannes Mesherle guilty of involuntary manslaughter. Mehserle was accused of murdering an unarmed man, Oscar Grant, on a BART platform on New Year's Day 2009. Four years in state prison is the maximum sentence Mehserle can receive.

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) -- Oakland police say people have broken into an athletic store near the city's downtown as hundreds of people protest the verdict in the case of a former transit officer. Johannes Mehserle was convicted of involuntary manslaughter on Thursday in Los Angeles in the videotaped shooting death of an unarmed black man on an Oakland train platform.

A white former transit officer was convicted of involuntary manslaughter Thursday in the shooting death of an unarmed black man on an Oakland train platform in a 2009 encounter that set off days of rioting in the city. Prosecutors had wanted Johannes Mehserle convicted of murdering 22-year-old Oscar Grant, who was shot as he lay face-down. Mehserle was placed in handcuffs and taken away after the verdict. He turned to his family and mouthed, "I love you, guys." His parents wept when the verdict was read.

OAKLAND -- As the hour approaches for a jury to decide the fate of former BART police officer Johannes Mehserle, thousands of Oaklanders hope to experience what seemed so unlikely to them 19 months ago: Justice for Oscar Grant. But what is justice? What constitutes a just response to the killing of the 22-year-old grocery store worker, a man memorialized in hip-hop songs and murals, discussed in barbershops and living rooms as an iconic victim of police brutality that some say happens all too often? Grant was among a group of revelers returning from San Francisco on New Year's night...

LOS ANGELES — Closing arguments on both sides in the Johannes Mehserle murder trial are now complete. Judge Robert Perry will instruct jurors

The tension in Oakland is palpable as the city awaits a verdict in the trial of Johannes Mehserle, a former BART police officer charged with murdering passenger Oscar Grant in January 2009. City officials and business leaders have issued rote statements pleading for public calm in the event of an unpopular verdict. And they run the gamut from righteous to the well-intentioned to the downright ridiculous. This much we already know: What may appear as a reasonable verdict in one community may look like a travesty of justice in another. Youth Uprising, a city-funded youth center, has produced a video...

I wrote for the Los Angeles Daily News during the Rodney King riots in 1992. I remember the first time I saw the shocking videotape of a group of officers beating and kicking a lone black motorist. Then I followed the trial of four police officers, the not-guilty verdicts, the rage and the ugliness. Six days of rioting left parts of Los Angeles charred and 54 people dead. As Oakland awaits the verdict in the trial of former BART police officer Johannes Mehserle for the 2009 New Year's Day shooting of Oscar Grant, some officials fear violence will erupt in...

LOS ANGELES - Johannes Mehserle will not be convicted of first-degree murder, a judge declared today, but jurors deciding the 28-year-old's fate will be allowed to consider every other crime, including second-degree murder, associated with a homicide. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert Perry said evidence in the case proves that the former BART police officer did not plan to kill Oscar Grant III when he shot the 22-year-old Hayward man in the back on Oakland's Fruitvale BART station platform. Perry said, however, that there is enough evidence to allow the jury to consider whether the killing was a second-degree...

On any given day in the Bay Area, it's common to come across aspiring musicians hawking homemade music CDs on the streets of Oakland, Berkeley or San Francisco.Kazi Reeves, 25, who spends time each week outside Peet's Coffee Shop on Oakland's Lakeshore Avenue, is an easygoing pitchman who uses an iPod and headphones to offer potential customers a free sample.He is unabashedly friendly and upbeat, except when it comes to the Johannes Mehserle trial in Los Angeles."I expect an unfair verdict," Reeves said. "A fair verdict would at least be manslaughter," he said. Anything less "would be enough for me...

Former BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle broke down and sobbed today as he described to a jury the moment he realized he had shot Oscar Grant in the back. "I didn't think I had my gun," Mehserle said. "I heard the pop. It wasn't very loud. It wasn't like a gun shot. And then I remember thinking, 'What went wrong with my Taser?' I remember looking at my gun in my right hand." Mehserle continued, "I didn't know what to think. It just shouldn't have been there." Mehserle then broke down in tears, as did his mother, who was watching...

The prosecutor in the murder trial of a former BART police officer who killed an unarmed man called a use-of-force expert to the stand today - a former cop who talked about how officers should stay calm and use as little force as needed when arresting suspects. But the most memorable part of Sean McCann's testimony came during cross-examination, when - in response to a question by defense attorney Michael Rains - he said he had once drawn his gun on a suspect during a fight without realizing he had done so. The exchange was the latest instance in which...