Free Talk Live

LOS ANGELES -- A white former transit officer was convicted of involuntary manslaughter Thursday in the shooting death of an unarmed black man on an Oakland train platform in a 2009 encounter that set off days of rioting in the city.

The jury deliberated more than six hours over two days to convict Johannes Mehserle in the killing of 22-year-old Oscar Grant, who was shot to death as he lay face-down.

A former transit police officer convicted of involuntary manslaughter for fatally shooting an unarmed man on an Oakland train station platform was sentenced by a Los Angeles judge Friday to "two" years in prison.

A former transit police officer convicted last year in the shooting death of an unarmed man on an Oakland, California, train platform will be freed from prison early Monday morning, according to a court order.

The recent trial of the BART police officer Johannes Mehserle who shot and killed Oscar Grant has left many wondering if justice was served. A good question to ask may be what would have happened if the tables were turned. What if a young black man had accidentally shot and killed a police officer?

"The OPD has yet more blood on their hands — and another potentially disastrous PR problem to contend with — as news arrives today that the victim in an officer-involved shooting in East Oakland on Sunday is a cousin of the late, martyred Oscar Grant."

"An arbitrator today overturned BART's firing of Marysol Domenici, a police officer who had been accused of lying to investigators and an Alameda County judge about another officer's killing of unarmed train rider Oscar Grant."

Richard Fine, who holds a PhD in international law and served as an anti-trust prosecutor at the Department of Justice in Washington D.C., has been in jail in the L.A. County Jail for over a year in solitary confinement. He never had a trial, there has been no conviction, nor any sentence to keep him there.

Nearly 200 Los Angeles County employees earned more than a quarter of a million dollars in 2009, according to a list of the county's top earners released late Monday in response to a Public Records Act request from The Times.

A man was fatally shot by police in downtown Seattle on Monday afternoon, according to police.

The shooting occurred on the northwest corner of Boren Ave. and E. Howell St. at approximately 4:15 p.m.

Police said an officer was on patrol when he spotted a man sitting on the sidewalk, whittling, and approached him.

The officer told the man to drop the knife several times, police said, but instead of doing so, he stood up. When the man refused to heed to his commands, the officer opened fire and hit the man.