Man acquitted in scuffle with BART officers caught on film

Michael Smith, 22, was found not guilty of charges stemming from an encounter with police at the Embarcadero BART station on July 29, 2016. The still frame above from a police body camera shows officers with there knees on Smith's back. less Michael Smith, 22, was found not guilty of charges stemming from an encounter with police at the Embarcadero BART station on July 29, 2016. The still frame above from a police body camera shows officers with ... more Photo: San Francisco Public Defender's Office Photo: San Francisco Public Defender's Office Image 1 of / 7 Caption Close Man acquitted in scuffle with BART officers caught on film 1 / 7 Back to Gallery

An African American man arrested during a video-recorded struggle with BART police officers at a San Francisco train station was acquitted of four counts of battery on an officer after a racially charged trial.

Michael Smith, 22, was found not guilty of the counts Wednesday afternoon in San Francisco Superior Court after two days of jury deliberation, said Public Defender Jeff Adachi, who personally represented Smith. He argued his client had used reasonable force to protect himself and his pregnant girlfriend after racial profiling prompted an excessive response from officers. BART denied the accusations.

“The theory is once an officer uses excessive force, an arrest becomes unlawful. Our strategy really focused on showing the BART police used excessive force throughout the arrest,” Adachi said. “They’re expecting a violent black man who just committed a robbery. That was not true.”

WARNING: This video contains profanity.

Jurors were split on whether to convict or acquit Smith on two additional counts of battery on a police officer, one count of resisting arrest and a lesser charge of simple battery, prompting the judge to declare a mistrial. Prosecutors are expected to decide by Friday whether to retry Smith on those charges.

The charges stemmed from a July 29 confrontation at the Embarcadero Station, which happened after BART police responded to reports of a possibly armed man trying to rob a passenger on a train. Adachi argued Smith hadn’t tried to rob anyone.

Smartphone video posted on social media showed Smith struggling with officers and at times kicking at them. At one point, after Smith appeared to spit at an officer, the officer punched Smith in the face while he was pinned on the station platform.

According to Adachi, Smith and his pregnant girlfriend had been traveling to a doctor’s appointment when a white man on the train told them they smelled bad and to move away, sparking an argument. The man called police and falsely reported Smith had threatened to rob him, Adachi said, telling dispatchers that Smith may have had a gun.

Police did not find a weapon on Smith, and prosecutors charged him only with crimes that stemmed from the confrontation on the platform.

The prosecution and defense agreed that as the train pulled into the station, officers with guns drawn ordered Smith and his girlfriend onto the platform. Body camera video from officers, BART surveillance video and smartphone recordings of the incident were shown during the trial. In one video shown to jurors, Smith struggled as he saw an officer press a knee to his prone girlfriend’s back, Adachi said.

Amid the trial, Adachi tried to have Judge Anne-Christine Massullo removed after she ruled he could not mention in jury selection the Black Lives Matter movement or Oscar Grant, a black 22-year-old man who was shot dead by a BART police officer on New Year’s Day 2009. His request was denied.

None of the jurors selected in the trial was African American. But juror John Mayhew said afterward that the underlying racial dynamics were clear.

“One of the officers had made a comment about how the minute he saw (Smith), he looked angry and he had a furrowed brow,” Mayhew said. “I didn’t see that from the video, and it spoke to a certain amount of bias. This person looked a certain way and you were willing to react a certain way.”

The jurors struggled with whether Smith resisted arrest, Mayhew said, when he refused to get on the ground after the officers approached him with their guns drawn. Mayhew said several jurors spoke of recent police shootings across the nation and could imagine that Smith was thinking he might be in danger.

“From the moment when they said, ‘Get down, get down,’ and he said no, it was only 10 seconds,” Mayhew said. “They didn’t give him time to process what was asked of him, and right now, if you’re African American, this is part of your life, part of your story.”

Mayhew added, “I believe with all my heart that if that call had been about me, a 52-year-old white male, they would not have approached me the way they did, with their guns drawn.”

Jenna Lyons is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jlyons@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JennaJourno