Video of Grant's Murder by Police
>via: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXqGT74vBKk&feature=player_embedded
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Police officer convicted in California subway shooting
Page last updated at 01:36 GMT, Friday, 9 July 2010 02:36 UK
Mehserle, shown in 2009, testified he thought Grant was reaching for a gun
A former police officer for a California subway system has been found guilty of shooting dead an unarmed passenger last year.
Johannes Mehserle was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter.
He shot Oscar Grant in the back in Oakland, California, on 1 January 2009, while attempting to subdue him following a fight.
Mehserle told the Los Angeles court that he had mistaken the pistol for an electric Taser weapon on his belt.
The incident, recorded by onlookers on their mobile phones, sparked a period of violence in Oakland, a city on San Francisco Bay.
The trial was moved to Los Angeles because of the tensions in Oakland.
Speaking after the jury's finding, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger called on state residents "to remain calm in light of the verdict and not to resort to violence".
Mehserle, 28, faces years in prison. He will be sentenced next month.
He resigned from the 200-member Bay Area Rapid Transit (Bart) police force soon after the shooting.
The Bart system serves cities in the San Francisco Bay area.
On the night of the shooting, police officers identified Grant, a 22-year-old African-American man, as a participant in a fight on a train.
'Racially divisive trial'Mehserle and another officer attempted to subdue him, and Mehserle testified that he saw Grant digging in his pocket and feared he had a gun.
He told the court he had intended to use an electric Taser weapon but mistakenly pulled and fired his duty handgun instead.
Mobile footage of events leading up to the incident
Grant had recently been released from jail after serving time on a gun possession charge.
The BBC's Peter Bowes in Los Angeles says the case proved to be one of the most racially divisive trials in California since four Los Angeles officers were acquitted in 1992 over the beating of black motorist Rodney King.
Oakland erupted in violence after the shooting, with protesters clashing with police and rioters setting cars ablaze and damaging businesses.
Mehserle fled to Nevada following the shooting and was arrested about two weeks later.