Cop says Mehserle yelled: 'I'm going to Tase him'

(06-19) 04:00 PDT Los Angeles - --

BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle shouted, "I'm going to Tase him," just before he fired a pistol shot into Oscar Grant's back, a former colleague of Mehserle's testified Friday at his murder trial.

Former Officer Anthony Pirone's testimony was a pivotal moment in the 6-day-old trial - and although he buttressed the defense's argument that the shooting was a tragic mistake, he also undercut Mehserle's case when he said Grant appeared to be under police control just before the fatal shot.

The defense is trying to convince jurors that Mehserle, 28, was having difficulty subduing Grant on the Fruitvale Station platform in Oakland early New Year's Day 2009, so he grabbed what he thought was his stun gun and fired.

But Pirone - who made the decision to arrest Grant for allegedly resisting officers - told prosecutor David Stein that he thought he had Grant subdued after the 22-year-old Hayward man had resisted being handcuffed.

Suddenly, Pirone said, Mehserle shouted, "I'm going to Tase him," and told Pirone to "get up" before he grabbed his pistol and fired a single shot.

At that moment, Pirone said, he figured Mehserle had deployed the Taser - until he saw him holding his gun with two hands.

"My initial thought was that his Taser had malfunctioned," Pirone told jurors. "I was looking for the (electric) probes that come out of a Taser."

Scuffling before shooting

Stein - who says the Taser story is a fabrication and who called Pirone to the stand - seized upon the testimony to suggest that the witness was covering for a fellow cop.

As he did, Grant's mother, Wanda Johnson, wept in the second row of the court gallery. Mehserle sat as still as a statue, staring at the defense table in front of him. His only movements were eye blinks.

Stein asked Pirone if he had mentioned the Taser account to investigators in the days after the shooting. Pirone said he couldn't recall doing so.

Asked whether Mehserle had told him after the shooting that he intended to fire his Taser, Pirone said he had not.

It was the closest that jurors have come to the incident. Pirone detained Grant for a fight on a train, decided to arrest him, and held him down with his hands and knees as Mehserle tried to cuff him.

Pirone admitted that he had a heated exchange with Grant just before Mehserle put him to the ground. He said it started with Grant saying, "Why are you messing with me? I respect the police. I have a 4-year-old daughter."

Pirone said he had responded by asking Grant what his daughter would think of the way he was acting on the platform. According to Pirone, Grant then called him a "bitch-ass n-," prompting Pirone to angrily shout the epithet twice in Grant's ear and then say, "Yeah, that's respect."

"When you said those words," Stein asked Pirone, "did you intend to challenge him in any way?"

"No," Pirone said, calling it "sarcasm."

When Grant hit the ground, Pirone said, he tried to "wiggle free." Pirone was holding his upper body, with Mehserle behind him working on his hands.

Pirone said Mehserle had announced he was going to Tase Grant and cried out, "I can't get his hands," and, "His hands are in his waistband."

Stein played one of the many videos of the shooting, slowly and repeatedly. He asked Pirone whether, in the footage, he could make out any of the words Mehserle had said. Pirone said he could not.

At the moment Mehserle stood up and fired, Stein asked, "You felt you had control of Mr. Grant?"

"Yes," Pirone said.

'Going for a gun'

While he was reporting the incident over his police radio, Pirone said, Mehserle walked up and said, "Tony, I need to talk to you."

"When I finished my transmission, I said, 'What?' He said, 'Tony, I thought he was going for a gun.' I said, 'Yeah, OK man.' That was it."

Jurors may have a difficult time weighing some aspects of Pirone's testimony. He said he recalled some details of the incident, but had relied on video footage to describe others. In some instances, he said, he wasn't sure which - video or memory - he was drawing upon.

"It's kind of like trying to unscramble an egg," he said.

Pirone was fired by BART police this year in connection with his actions on the platform. He is appealing the dismissal.

E-mail Demian Bulwa at dbulwa@sfcronicle.com.

This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle