By Paul T. Rosynsky
San Jose Mercury News
Former BART police officer Johannes Mehserle will return to the witness stand in a courtroom this month to defend himself and the transit agency’s police department against allegations that he and other officers beat a man at the Coliseum BART station.
The allegations are being made by Kenneth Carrethers in a federal civil rights lawsuit in which the Oakland resident claims Mehserle and four other BART police officers attacked him on Nov. 15, 2008, after he “criticized BART police officers for being lazy and incompetent.”
According to the lawsuit, Mehserle used a leg sweep to take Carrethers to the ground and then, with other officers, “piled on top of (him), kicked and punched him, hog-tied him and carried him by the strap of the hog-tie to a police car.”
Carrethers was then taken to the hospital and charged with resisting arrest. The case against him was eventually dropped, the lawsuit filed by The Dolan Law Firm and the Scott Law Firm stated. Also named in the suit are BART officers Keith Smith, Douglas Horner, Robert Haney and Frederick Guanzon.
Dale Allen, an attorney representing Mehserle and BART, said in court filings that the police actions against Carrethers were justified and sparked by Carrethers making threatening motions toward the officers. According to Allen’s filing, Carrethers was asked numerous times to calm down but refused and charged “with clenched fists” toward one of the officers standing with Mehserle.
Neither side disputes that Carrethers’ interaction with the police officers began as he was leaving the Coliseum BART station complaining about how he believed BART police were useless because Carrethers’ car had been broken into twice while parked at the station.
The incident between Carrethers and Mehserle occurred less than two months before the former officer shot Oscar Grant III in the back while Grant was lying face down on the Fruitvale BART station platform.
Mehserle was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter for that incident, but the jury hearing the Carrethers case will be barred from hearing testimony about the Grant case, court records state.
Copyright 2011 San Jose Mercury News