Oscar Grant Was Restrained When He Was Shot. Protests Continue. Mehserle’s Attorney and Alameda D.A. Press Conference. Video

The SF Chronicle Reports:

The unarmed man killed by former BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle on an Oakland train platform early New Year’s Day put up a brief struggle with officers but had been restrained and had both arms behind him when he was shot in the back, police investigators said…

…The filing adds that the other officer was holding Grant down on his stomach, with his knee on Grant’s head and neck. Mehserle was “seen trying to pull Grant’s right arm, which appeared to be underneath Grant’s body,” before abruptly shooting him, police said.

“After careful analysis of the video, it is clear that both Grant’s hands were behind his back, a position hands are commonly placed in by police officers in order to handcuff individuals,” the police filing said. It concluded that Grant had been “restrained and unarmed” when he was shot.

Check out this conflicting coverage of last night’s protests in Oakland.

The front of the LA Times points to violence at last night’s Oakland protests:

But the link just goes to nine photos, no reporting, no stories. Only two of the photos show what could be construed as “violence” — although it looks more like vandalism to us:

According to the SF Chron, this “violence” was not widespread.  It was discouraged by protest organizes and limited to a few people:

“Of course you don’t like to see violence, but there are times when nonviolence has not worked. It builds and it builds, and eventually it bursts forth in some rather unfortunate ways,” he said. “Personally, I don’t like to see it, but sometimes it’s just avoidable.”

Tension grew later in the evening as a group of about 100 refused to obey organizers’ calls to go home, staying around 14th and Broadway as police reopened streets. Organizers kept the crowd under control, pulling protesters off cars and away from windows, until about 8:20.

At that point, a group of several dozen broke away, shattering windows in a bus shelter, Wells Fargo Bank and several businesses in the City Center Plaza shopping mall.

“There wasn’t probably more than 10 people causing all the trouble,” said Dan Lindheim, Oakland’s acting city administrator. “The security for the demonstration did a great job, but at a certain point they couldn’t deal with that. The good news is the police and the demonstration worked really well together. The bad news is you can’t really control people who want to cause trouble and weren’t part of the demonstration.”

Here’s some video of the protest from InsideBayArea.Com:

Video from the press conference with Alameda County DA Tom Orloff announcing charges against Johannes Mehserle:

And what does Johannes Mehserle’s attorney think about all this? Here’s a video of yesterday’s press conference with Mehserle’s attorney, Christopher Miller: