A man who accused former BART officer Johannes Mehserle and four other officers for beating him in 2008 lost a federal civil rights case for $1 million this morning.
Kenneth Carrethers claimed the officers kicked, punched and hog-tied him after he berated them for not doing enough about recent car burglaries at an Oakland station in November 2008.
Mehserle testified during the trial that Carrethers appeared ready to physically attack an officer when he was taken down.
The federal jury in San Francisco decided that police had acted appropriately.
Carrethers' attorney, Christopher Dolan, told the Oakland Tribune that a lack of witnesses and security camera footage made prosecuting the case difficult. The jury had to rely on testimony give by Carrethers, the officers and two station agents.
Dolan said the officers purposely did not seek witnesses after the event and intentionally decided not to ask for security camera footage of the incident. By the time the lawsuit was filed in March 2009 and Dolan sought the videotape, it had already been deleted as part of the agencies routine practices.
In June, Mehserle completed a two-year jail sentence for an involuntary manslaughter conviction for the 2009 fatal shooting of Oscar Grant.