If former BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle intended to shoot and kill Oscar Grant during an arrest on an Oakland train platform, the way he went about it violated much of what he learned in training.

According to firearms experts who testified at Mehserle's murder trial Tuesday, and video footage shown in court, Mehserle struggled to get his pistol out of his holster. Before firing in the early hours of Jan. 1, 2009, he stood up from his knees for no apparent reason.

He pulled the trigger with a second officer and a train full of New Year's revelers in the line of fire. And after a single shot into Grant's back, Mehserle immediately shoved the gun back in his holster.

"Definitely not back in the holster," David Clark, an instructor at the Napa Valley College police academy that Mehserle attended in 2006, said when asked whether that was a proper move for an officer to make during a crisis situation. "It wouldn't be good, no."

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