Suits can go forward in Oscar Grant case

Lawsuits against BART police officers involved in the 2009 incident that left Oscar Grant shot to death will go forward after a federal appeals court declined Tuesday to grant the officers immunity as law enforcement agents.

The ruling by a three-judge panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco concerned suits brought by Grant's father, who is incarcerated, and by five of his friends, who were detained with Grant at Fruitvale Station in Oakland on Jan. 1, 2009.

Grant had been in a fight on a train. After then-BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle shot him in the back while trying to handcuff him, Grant's friends were not treated as witnesses but instead were held for hours at BART police headquarters.

The lawsuits - which name six current and former BART officers, including Mehserle and ex-Police Chief Gary Gee - have been on hold for two years while attorneys for the defendants sought to throw out some claims. BART settled suits brought by Grant's mother and daughter, agreeing to pay them $1.3 million and $1.5 million, respectively.

The appeals court panel said Tuesday that many of the complaints raised in the lawsuits needed to be sorted out by a jury. In doing so, the panel mostly affirmed rulings by a lower-court judge.

The appeals court declined to dismiss Grant's father's claim that Mehserle deprived him of his relationship with his son. The panel rejected an argument by Mehserle's attorney that the father, Oscar Grant Jr., who is in prison for murder, was not close enough to his 22-year-old son to make the claim.

The court also would not grant Mehserle's request that he be given immunity as a law enforcement officer whose actions were clearly an outgrowth of reasonable police work.

The lawsuit by Grant's friends was directed in large part at former Officer Anthony Pirone, who aggressively detained the men at Fruitvale Station before he knew whether they had been in the fight. According to video footage and court testimony, Pirone swore at them, threatened them with a Taser, used force on them, and finally ordered that Grant be arrested for resisting him.

The appeals court declined to grant Pirone immunity from being sued, writing that the stop was "constitutionally unsound." The court cited "the questionable nature of Pirone's authority to detain the group for a misdemeanor that abated before his arrival."

The five plaintiffs were held in handcuffs for hours under the orders of two now-retired BART commanders, Maria White and William Gibson, the appeals court said. Neither is named in the suit.

Defense attorneys prevailed on some matters. For instance, an allegation that Mehserle unlawfully arrested Fernando Anicete, one of Grant's friends, was dismissed because Mehserle had nothing to do with the arrest.

The case is scheduled to return to U.S. District Court in San Francisco on Aug. 8. BART is paying for all of the officers' legal bills and would be responsible for any compensatory damages won at trial. The officers would have to pay any punitive damages.

The lawsuit extends the long aftermath of a case that inspired the recently released film "Fruitvale Station."

Mehserle, 31, served half of a two-year sentence for involuntary manslaughter after a trial in which he said he had meant to shoot Grant with his Taser rather than a gun. Pirone, who argues he had good cause to detain the men and used force only to protect himself and others, is still trying to reverse his firing from BART.