Over at The Atlantic, Ta-Nehisi Coates discusses what the Mehserle sentence does to the law enforcement “brand.”   Youth Radio International gets the word straight from the streets.  The San Francisco Examiner believes Mehserle’s punishment will set a precedent.  And another well presented legal analysis from Professor Peter Keane on KQED.

The trial won’t start for months, and there’s a gag order on the case so that means no television and no blow-by-blow accounts of the trial. .  But we can tell you this for sure…once the actual trial starts it’ll be quick.  The case has been assigned to Judge Robert Perry, a veteran and well-known judge on the high-security 9th floor of the Criminal Courts Building in downtown L.A.

Judge Perry famous for famous for lightning fast trials.  Yeah, it’ll take months for this trial to actually start, but once it does, it’ll be over and over quickly.  Judge Perry starts his trials first thing in the morning and runs them until the end of the day.  No long recesses, no hand-wringing over rulings.  Attorneys better be prepared and ready to go first thing every day…or else.   The man is a whip-smart former federal prosecutor who handled the John De Lorean case back in the 20th century and as a judge handles nothing but serious trial matters.

Bottom line:  High-profile trials in L.A. can turn into a circus…which is probably why California Supreme Court Chief Justice George assigned this case to Judge Perry. This ain’t gonna be no circus. This ain’t gonna be televised.  There ain’t gonna be no minute-by-minute updates from the courtroom.  This is going to be a tight-ship of a trial.  And that’s a good thing.

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:

Johannes Mehserle, 27, of Lafayette was taken into custody in Douglas County, Nev., said Deputy Steve Velez of the Douglas County sheriff’s office. The arrest was also confirmed by David Chai, chief of staff to Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums.

Mehserle was arrested in the New Year’s Day shootin iin Ng of Oscar Grant, a 22-year-old supermarket worker from Hayward who was lying facedown after being pulled off a BART train by police investigating a fight. An Alameda County judge signed an arrest warrant alleging murder, and Mehserle surrendered without incident, authorities said

ources said Mehserle was in Nevada because he feared for his safety after death threats were made against him. Douglas County is 15 miles south of Carson City in northwestern Nevada and includes part of Lake Tahoe…

Mehserle’s attorney, Christopher W. Miller of Sacramento, confirmed early today that his client was arrested on suspicion of murder. He said he would not comment further until a news conference today…

Alameda County District Attorney and the BART Police Chief had this to say [from LA Now]

“At this point, what I feel the evidence indicates that is an unlawful killing done by an intentional act and as for the evidence, we have nothing that would mitigate that to something lower than a murder,” Orloff said at the news conference in Oakland. “That doesn’t mean that evidence could not develop in the future.”

When BART Police Chief Gary Gee, who also attended the news conference, was asked if race was a factor in the incident, he said: “I can tell you from the first 12, 13 days of this investigation, we have not found any nexus to race that provoked this to happen.”

UPDATE:  San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that Mehserle sent another BART passenger to the hospital six weeks before the shooting:

The incident ended with Mehserle and three other officers grabbing Oakland resident Kenneth Carrethers, binding his arms and legs and taking him to a Pleasanton hospital. There, he was treated for face and chest bruises before being booked into county jail for resisting arrest.

“I got beat up,” Carrethers said today in his attorney’s office in San Francisco, where he told the story of his Nov. 15, 2008, confrontation at BART’s Coliseum Station.

“He had a really cocky, you-can’t-touch me attitude,” Carrethers said. “He figured he was better than everybody else and that they better do what he wanted them to do.”

Carrethers said he was on his way home from work and leaving the station with another passenger when, according to Carrethers and Mehserle’s BART police report, Mehserle and other officers overheard him making disparaging remarks about police officers.

KGO-TV’s Liveblog reports:

BART has completed its internal investigation and sent its findings to the Alameda County district attorney.

BART officials will not say what happened or what conclusion the investigation reached.

Seven officers present at the Fruitvale station at the time of the shooting were interviewed. Former BART Officer Johannes Mesherle was interviewed during the investigation but would not say anything and invoked his Fifth Amendment rights. BART investigators interviewed 21 people altogether.

Representatives from the Oakland Police Department, as well as BART General Manager Dorothy Dugger and BART Police Chief Gary Gee are present at the press conference.

“Now it is the DA’s responsibility to decide whether to file charges in this case,” Dugger said.

Indybay announced an Oscar Grant rally at 5pm today (January 12) at the San Francisco Civic Center.

Artists added this piece to the 24th and Mission Street Bart Station:

[From Steve Rhodes.  Thx: SFist]

This is hanging from apartment on Valencia and 22nd:

[From SF Weekly]

Then there’s this, also being distributed by Indybay:

And KGO-7 News in San Francisco Reports:

[BART Riders] found flyers that look like something BART might issue, until you read the text.

The anonymous author compares BART Police to a violent gang saying, “All members of this gang, which refers to itself as the “BART Police” are known to carry firearms.” It goes on to say, “This vigilante group considers itself above the law.”

Here’s a copy of the flyer:

Thanks to commenter “Lev” for pointing us to a copy of the flyer over at Diskofantastiko.