BART Police Shooting of Oscar Grant - Johannes Mehserle

Johannes Mehserle

The oldest of three children, Johannes Sebastian Mehserle (born in Germany c. 1982) was raised in the Bay Area from the age of four. He graduated in the class of 2000 from New Technology High School in Napa, California. He attended college in Napa, in Monterey, and at Sonoma State University, where he majored in business, and he developed an interest in police work through a friend who was a police officer. He went on to graduate from Napa Valley College Police Academy in 2006, where he placed in the top five of his class academically and placed well physically. Mehserle's girlfriend gave birth to their first child on the day after the shooting, on January 2, 2009.

Mehserle joined the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) Police in March 2007. During the less than two years prior to the shooting, he had never been the subject of a sustained complaint from BART's internal affairs department Since the shooting, a Bay Area man has complained to the media that Mehserle had beaten him on November 15, 2008; Mehserle's police report on the incident states that four officers grabbed the man after he yelled threats and assumed a fighting stance. The accuser, who has served time for theft and burglary, was taken to the hospital for chest and facial injuries and was later booked into jail for resisting arrest. He has not filed a formal complaint against BART.

Mehserle submitted to drug and alcohol testing per BART's standard operating procedure. The results showed no drugs or alcohol in his system. He retained a criminal defense attorney and refused to speak to the authorities, invoking the Public Safety Officers Procedural Bill of Rights Act (California Government Code section 3300-3313) and the Fifth Amendment, claiming potential self-incrimination.

On January 5, 2009, Mehserle's attorney postponed a scheduled meeting by BART investigators, seeking to defer it until the following week. BART Police administration and investigators did not allow this and commanded him to attend an investigative interview on January 7. Mehserle did not attend. Instead, his attorney and his BART Police Officers Association union representative arrived and submitted his resignation letter.

Mehserle and his family received a number of death threats after videos of the shooting appeared, and he moved at least twice; his parents have also left their Napa home because of death threats to the family.