So how could he confuse his TASER with his handgun? Retired LAPD captain Greg Meyer and police use-of-force researcher Dr. Bill Lewinski both testified at the trial that the confusion was a matter of insufficient training.
Meyer, a POLICE Magazine Advisory Board member and TASER expert, testified that the BART police did not train with their TASERs under stress. Also, because of budget reasons, BART did not issue TASER holsters to each individual officer. The TASERs and holsters were given to the officers before they started their shifts and four different configurations of holsters were available. So Mehserle was likely unfamiliar with the TASER holster that he was issued that night.
Lewinski's psychological explanation focused on slip-and-capture errors. You can read it in detail in the Force Science News (www.forcesciencenews.com). But it boils down to this: Sometimes we think we're doing one thing with our hands when we're actually doing something else.
Mehserle had dutifully practiced drawing his service weapon since he graduated from the academy two years before the incident. In contrast, he'd probably drawn a TASER several times in training and only three times on duty. So Lewinski believes that when Mehserle started reaching for his TASER, muscle memory kicked in and he drew his pistol instead. The moral here is that officers need to practice drawing their TASERs.
It could be argued that the defense won the Mehserle murder trial. The jury decided that the former officer did not intend to kill Grant and they found him guilty of involuntary manslaughter. That's the charge the D.A. should have sought in the first place, and it can be justified. But don't forget that gun enhancement. The jury bought it, and it hikes Mehserle's possible sentence for involuntary manslaughter from a maximum of four years to a maximum of 15.
