Editor’s Note: During his testimony as a witness for the defense, Capt. Greg Meyer, a use-of-force expert and an occasional contributor to PoliceOne, said that a decision by Johannes Mehserle to use a TASER on Oscar Grant would have been a good one, because it would have caused lesser injuries than a gun or a baton, and it wouldn’t have inflamed the emotions of onlookers.
By Demian Bulwa
San Francisco Chronicle
SAN FRANCISCO — A use-of-force expert hired to defend Johannes Mehserle at his murder trial testified today that the former BART officer was justified in using a Taser shock weapon to subdue train rider Oscar Grant because Grant was fighting Mehserle’s efforts to handcuff him.
Mehserle, 28, said last week that he meant to deploy his Taser on Grant, but accidentally pulled out his pistol and fired a single shot into the 22-year-old Hayward resident’s back at Fruitvale Station in Oakland on Jan. 1, 2009.
In calling retired Los Angeles police Capt. Greg Meyer to the stand, the defense sought to varnish Mehserle’s testimony last Thursday and Friday.
Read more on the San Francisco Chronicle.