Transit Shooting: Victim's Mom Gets $1.3 Million
The San Francisco Bay area transit agency (BART) agreed to pay $1.3 million to the mother of a 22-year-old unarmed man who was fatally shot by a transit officer in 2009.
The settlement between Bay Area Rapid Transit and Wanda Johnson resolves a $50 million wrongful death and civil rights suit filed in federal court by Oscar Grant's family, says an MSNBC report.
Former BART officer Johannes Mehserle, 29, was convicted last year of involuntary manslaughter for fatally shooting Grant on an Oakland train station platform on New Year's Day in 2009.
Mehserle was released this month after serving one year in Los Angeles jail after his trial was moved to Southern California, the report says.
The shooting was recorded by bystanders and within hours videos of the incident were posted online showing Mehserle firing a bullet into the back of Grant as he lay face down after being pulled off a train, supposedly for fighting, says the report.
The videos were subsequently used as evidence during Mehserle's murder trial, further stoking the racial tensions brought on by the shooting. Mehserle testified that he meant to use his stun gun instead of his .40-caliber pistol.
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