Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley said Monday there will be no new charges in the highly-publicized 2009 police killing of Oscar Grant, an incident that sparked nationwide demonstrations and calls for racial justice.
In a lengthy YouTube video released with the 16-page District Attorney's Report on the case, O'Malley said she won't be charging former BART officer Anthony Pirone with any criminal offense, explaining "there is no evidence to suggest that he possessed an express intent to kill Mr. Grant."
"If Pirone was proved an aider or abettor, we would have to prove he had an intent to encourage or facilitate the commission of (Johannes) Mehserle's intended crime," O'Malley explained of her review. "The facts do not support a murder charge under this theory."
The district attorney also pointed to "no communication either directly or indirectly between Mehserle and any other officer on the platform that he was going to shoot Oscar Grant" as further evidence Mehserle committed the crime himself.
O’Malley announced in October that her office would reopen the case 11 years after Grant was shot to death by BART Police officer Johannes Mehserle on New Year's Day 2009.
Mehserle was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and served 11 months in prison. He was released in June 2011.
Related
