By Paul T. Rosynsky
MediaNews Group
LOS ANGELES -- “They’re beating us up for no reason. Let me call you back.”
Those were the last words Sophia Mesa heard from her boyfriend, Oscar Grant III, before he was fatally shot by a BART police officer Jan. 1, 2009, she testified Monday.
Mesa took the witness stand in the murder case against former BART police officer Johannes Mehserle to explain to the jury, among other things, that Grant had a fear of Tasers dating to an incident in 2006 when he was stunned by San Leandro police.
Deputy District Attorney David Stein called Mesa, 26, in the middle of the testimony of several passengers who witnessed Grant’s death.
Mesa remained calm throughout her testimony, pausing once to compose herself before explaining how she watched Grant get wheeled out of the Fruitvale BART station on a stretcher.
“I kept calling and calling. He picked up my call, it was fast,” Mesa said. “He said, ‘They’re beating us up for no reason. Let me call you back.’ Then he hung up.”
Moments later she said, “I heard a loud -- the gunshot.”
Mesa said it was the last time she talked to Grant, the father of her now-6-year-old daughter.
Mesa described what she called a “pushing” match that began between Grant and another man on the train before it arrived at Fruitvale.
It was that confrontation, which various people have described as either a fight or an argument, that brought police to the station.
Mesa said it wasn’t much of a fight, and said it was over by the time the train stopped.
Mesa did not explain why she left Grant on the train at the Fruitvale station, but the defense contends that she and Grant decided that he should remain on the train to avoid arrest. Grant was ordered to get off the train by BART police Officer Anthony Pirone.
Grant was on probation and parole at the time. If he had been arrested, he could have been charged with violating his parole and sent back to prison.
The jury will not learn that Grant was on parole, but defense attorney Michael Rains seized on Mesa’s testimony to highlight Grant’s past arrest.
Under a tense cross-examination, Rains peppered Mesa with questions about why Grant feared Tasers.
“Did he tell you that it involved the San Leandro police?” Rains asked.
“No,” Mesa replied.
“Did he tell you that he was running from the police?” Rains asked.
“No,” she said.
Rains continued to ask questions about the incident until he was interrupted by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert Perry.
“The point is, (Grant) had a prior incident in which he was Tased,” Perry said.
The other BART passengers, all part of a group of friends, also testified about the incident in similar fashion, saying BART police acted aggressively toward Grant and his friends.
They all also said the shooting was a complete surprise and, in their view, unwarranted.
Pamela Caneva said she remembers how she saw Mehserle standing over Grant while former BART police officer Anthony Pirone had his knee against Grant’s neck. At that point, she said, she saw Mehserle reach for his right hip.
“I said to my friend, ‘He’s not going to shoot him, is he?’” she said. “And then he shot him.”
The witnesses said that Mehserle put his hands to his head after the shooting.
Copyright 2010 The Times-Herald