Family Sues BART for $25M After Shooting Death

The family of a 22-year-old California man who died Jan. 1 after fatally being shot by a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) police officer at an Oakland transit station has filed a $25 million lawsuit.

According to a family lawyer, Oscar Grant of Hayward was not a threat to the officer who shot him. The lawyer says that videotape at the transit station and witness accounts back that up. The lawyer is also seeking to have criminal charges presented against the accused officer, who has not been named.

The shooting took place on the platform of the Fruitvale station in Oakland shortly after 2 a.m. Thursday. According to BART officials, the shooting was an accident, noting the officer's gun discharged while the police officer, who has worked for BART for two years, and four other officers investigated reports that two groups of young men were fighting on a train that had come from San Francisco and was en route to the Dublin/Pleasanton station.

The lawsuit is being filed on behalf of Wanda Johnson, Grant's mother; his four-year-old daughter and Oscar Grant's estate.