The family of Oscar Grant, the unarmed, 22-year-old Black man who was shot to death near Oakland, Calif., on New Year’s Day, wants the Bay-Area transit authority to pay $50 million for its police officers’ actions. Attorney John Burris, says that the agency, its chief of police and three officers played a role in snuffing out an innocent, compliant young man. Burris said Monday that the way Bay Area Rapid Transit Officers Johannes Mehserle and Tony Pirone behaved was “more egregious than I initially thought.” Read the rest.

 Another police officer’s brutality set the tone that led to the fatal shooting of a young Black man at an Oakland, Calif.-area metro station on New Year’s Day, a newly released video reveals. The Bay Area Rapid Transit Police Department said initially that only Officer Johannes Mehserle was involved in shooting to death 22-year-old Oscar Grant as he lay on the ground with his hands behind his back. What does the new video show? Read more here.

 Johannes Mehserle, the 27-year-old White transit cop who was charged with murder in the shooting death an unarmed young Black man, pleaded not guilty Thursday in an Oakland courtroom. The Alameda County District Attorney Tom Orloff charged Mehserle on Tuesday with committing an intentional, unlawful act when he shot 22-year-old Oscar Grant to death at Fruitvale Station, a stop on the Bay Area Rapid Transit route. Mehserle and other BART officers, who said they were investigating an onboard fight, had pulled Grant and several acquaintances from a train about 2 a.m. on New Year’s Day. When Mehserle shot him – the episode was captured in a cell phone camera – Grant was lying face down with his hands behind his back, according to Oakland Police investigators. Mehserle has declined to talk to detectives about the ordeal. The two-year veteran of the BART Police quit the force on Jan. 7. If the case goes to trial, the jury would have the option of acquitting Mehserle, or convicting him of first- or second-degree murder or a lesser charge of voluntary or involuntary manslaughter, according to Orloff. Christopher Miller, the attorney representing Mehserle, said his client is a “fine young man” and that he’s expecting a jury to acquit. Mehserle is being held without bail.

Cop accused of shooting handcuffed man quits. Hundreds of Oakland businesses are still cleaning up damage to buildings after a violent downtown protest. In a scene resembling the Los Angeles uprisings after 1992’s Rodney King beating trial verdict, about 100 people were arrested after breaking windows and trashing stores days after a 22-year-old Black man’s death. But as others had done in L.A., some of those vandalizing in outrage over the police shooting of Oscar Grant III left Black-owned establishments damaged, knowingly or otherwise. Read the rest here.

The attorney for a 22-year-old Black man who was shot to death by a Bay-Area California policeman on New Year’s Day says he will file a $25 million lawsuit, and he is demanding that prosecutors charge the officer with murder. “This is the most egregious shooting that I have ever seen,” said civil rights attorney John Burris, who is known for taking on high-profile police-abuse cases in the past. A videotape (see it here. Warning: Graphic Content)taken by a passenger on the train shows an officer with the Bay Area Rapid Transit Police Department standing over the Hayward, Calif., man, who was lying face down and handcuffed. The officer then appears to fire a bullet into the back of Oscar Grant III as fellow officers look on. Read the rest here.