Cop: Had Grant cooperated, he would be alive BART POLICE SHOOTING

** FILE **This undated family file photo provided by the Law Offices of John Burris shows Oscar Grant, a 22-year-old transit rider who was shot and killed by BART police on New Year's Day, 2009. A Douglas County jail official confirmed that 27-year-old Johannes Mehserle, who was involved in the incident, was in custody Tuesday night, Jan. 14, 2009, under a fugitive warrant issued in California (AP Photo/Family Handout provided by the Law Offices of John Burris) ** NO SALES ** less ** FILE **This undated family file photo provided by the Law Offices of John Burris shows Oscar Grant, a 22-year-old transit rider who was shot and killed by BART police on New Year's Day, 2009. A Douglas ... more Photo: AP Photo: AP Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Cop: Had Grant cooperated, he would be alive 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

A colleague of the former BART police officer who shot and killed an unarmed man early New Year's Day testified Wednesday that the victim would still be alive if he and his friends had cooperated with police.

"If they would have followed orders, this wouldn't have happened," said Officer Marysol Domenici at a preliminary hearing in Oakland for former Officer Johannes Mehserle, who is charged with murder.

Domenici and Mehserle were among seven BART officers who responded to Oakland's Fruitvale Station at about 2 a.m. in response to reports of a fight aboard a Dublin-Pleasanton train. Five young men, including 22-year-old Oscar Grant of Hayward, were detained.

Domenici and other BART officers testifying for the defense have described Grant and the others as belligerent. Domenici said Wednesday that if the men had followed police instructions and cooperated, "they probably would have just been cited (arrested on suspicion of a misdemeanor) and released."

Attorneys for Mehserle, 27, say he meant to fire his Taser stun gun rather than his pistol as he and another officer were trying to handcuff Grant for allegedly resisting arrest. Grant was killed by a single shot to the back.

Domenici, who has been on the BART force for four years, was called by defense attorneys to talk about what she described as a chaotic situation on the train platform. She said she had no regrets about her actions that night.

Domenici said she did not see Mehserle shoot Grant because she had been facing the other direction. Immediately after the shot was fired, she said, some train riders were so angry that she started thinking about using her gun.

"I said to myself, 'Oh, Jesus Christ, if I have to, I'm going to have to kill somebody,' " Domenici said.

But she also said she did not push an emergency button on her police radio that would have allowed her to call for backup.

Prosecutor David Stein conducted a long and sometimes aggressive cross-examination, and he suggested that Domenici was exaggerating the danger she had faced from Grant and others.

Stein and Domenici clashed sharply at times. When Stein asked her how long she remained on the platform after the shooting, she refused to estimate. She agreed with Stein that it was "less than 24 hours."

Asked by Stein whether she was saying the shooting was Grant's fault, Domenici did not answer directly.

Instead, she repeated statements she made earlier - that Grant refused at times to sit down against a station wall and forced her, at one point, to push him into the wall.

Domenici said the push was captured on one of several pieces of video that BART passengers recorded. Stein appeared stunned and questioned whether such footage existed.

"You never pushed Oscar Grant up against the wall, did you?" Stein asked.

"Yes, I did," Domenici responded.

Outside court, Grant's mother, Wanda Johnson, said she was disturbed by Domenici's testimony - particularly her assertion that she would not have done anything differently during the incident.

"She had no regard for human life, for my son's life," Johnson said.

As the fifth day of the preliminary hearing ended, Officer Tony Pirone was beginning his turn on the witness stand. Pirone - the officer who first detained Grant, made the decision to arrest him and helped Mehserle try to handcuff him - is scheduled to continue testifying June 3 after a week-long break.

Pirone, Domenici and the other officers who were on the train platform at the time of the shooting are on paid administrative leave while a private law firm conducts an internal affairs investigation for BART police.

After the hearing, Judge C. Don Clay of Alameda County Superior Court must decide whether to send Mehserle to trial for murder.