|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley announced Monday that her office will not file any charges against former BART Police Officer Anthony Pirone for the killing of Oscar Grant III in 2009 after reopening its investigation into the case in October.
The shooting of Grant by former Officer Johannes Mehserle at the Fruitvale BART station in Oakland in the early morning hours of New Year’s Day in 2009 eventually led to the conviction of Mehserle on an involuntary manslaughter charge.
Grant’s family had called for a murder charge against Pirone, who was kneeling on Grant prior to the shooting by Mehserle, who said he had meant to reach for his Taser stun gun instead of his firearm.
Pirone used a racial epithet multiple times while pinning Grant on the ground, but has said he was only repeating what Grant said to him.
The DA’s office, in a report released Monday on the decision not to charge Pirone, said “while Pirone’s overly aggressive conduct contributed to the chaotic nature of what transpired on the BART platform,” he cannot be charged with aiding and abetting in the killing since “there was no evidence that Pirone knew in advance that Mehserle was going to shoot Mr. Grant.”
A group of elected officials and civil rights activists lambasted O’Malley on Tuesday for her decision not to seek charges against Pirone.
BART Board directors Lateefah Simon and Bevan Dufty and Oakland City Councilman Loren Taylor called on the DA to file felony murder charges against the former officer.
“I want to be clear that Nancy O’Malley has failed, yet again, to do her job,” Simon said at a Tuesday morning news conference. “And that job was to ensure equal justice under the law.”
A 2009 report by former Oakland City Attorney Jayne Williams and then-attorney Kimberly Colwell of the law firm Meyers Nave that was released publicly a decade later argued “Officer Pirone’s overly aggressive and unreasonable actions and conduct in violation of policy and acceptable standards contributed substantially to the escalation of the hostile and volatile atmosphere during the course of the incident.”
A spokesperson for O’Malley said her office did not have any additional response to Tuesday’s news conference beyond its statement Monday.
Taylor said he and fellow council members Carroll Fife, Treva Reid and Nikki Fortunato Bas planned to introduce a resolution at this week’s City Council meeting imploring O’Malley to charge Pirone for his role in the shooting.
“We will never reimagine public safety if bad actors are never held to account for their crimes,” Taylor said.
The Rev. Wanda Johnson, Grant’s mother, argued that O’Malley’s job is not to be impartial toward issues like police brutality that disproportionately affect people of color.
“You have an obligation and a duty to do what is right,” Johnson said in reference to O’Malley. “And because you are failing to do what is right, Oscar’s blood is on your hands, Nancy O’Malley.”