LOS ANGELES – Police in Oakland underwent crowd-control training and were put on 12-hour shifts as they awaited a verdict in the shooting death of an unarmed black man by a white former transit officer who claimed he mistakenly drew his gun instead of his Taser.

A jury in Los Angeles ended its first day of deliberations Friday without reaching a verdict in the case against Johannes Mehserle. The panel will return Tuesday.

Mehserle, 28, has pleaded not guilty to murder in the shooting of 22-year-old Oscar Grant after a fight drew officers to the Fruitvale train station on New Year’s Day 2009. Grant was shot while lying face down on the platform.

Several bystanders videotaped the New Year’s Day 2009 incident — perhaps the most racially polarizing trial in California since four Los Angeles police officers were acquitted in 1992 in the Rodney King beating case.

In his closing argument, Alameda County Deputy District Attorney David Stein said police officers are supposed to protect and serve, not abuse their authority.

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LOS ANGELES – Two and half minutes. That’s the time Johannes Mehserle spent on an Oakland train platform before he shot and killed Oscar Grant who lay on his stomach.

On Thursday, two attorneys will likely spend several hours dissecting Mehserle’s every movement in that short time frame during their closing arguments. A jury will then begin deliberating whether Mehserle, a former Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer, should be found guilty of murder or lesser offenses such as manslaughter.

The trial has been tinged with racial overtures because Mehserle is white and Grant was black. Although a fellow officer was heard on a video taken by a train passenger uttering a slur at Grant before the shooting, there’s been no evidence presented that Mehserle’s actions were influenced by prejudice.

Mehserle, 28, has pleaded not guilty to murder. The trial was moved from Alameda County to Los Angeles because of excessive media coverage and tensions that boiled over into violence in Oakland.

Mehserle testified last week he mistakenly pulled his handgun instead of his Taser stun gun. Prosecutors have argued Mehserle intended to kill Grant, and that Mehserle used his handgun because officers were losing control of the situation.

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Seoul, South Korea –
South Korea’s President Lee Myung-bak is considering blaming North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-il by name for the first time Monday when he condemns North Korea’s sinking a South Korean navy ship as a “clear armed provocation.”

Mr. Lee’s top spokesman raised the possibility of an extraordinary personal mention of Kim Jong-il in an address Monday in which the president will reveal his plan to ask the UN Security Council to punish North Korea by strengthening sanctions.

Calling Kim Jong-il out by name could raise the risk of North-South confrontation. South Korean leaders normally address the North’s policies, statements, or deeds, but refrain from such direct criticism of the North Korean leader.

Yonhap, the South Korean news agency, quoted Lee Dong-kwan, senior secretary for public affairs at the presidential Blue House, as saying Lee “may mention North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in his speech, but it’s not yet decided.”

For the leader of South Korea to criticize the leader of North Korea by name would be indicative of the intensity of the South’s desire to avenge the episode in which a North Korean torpedo sank the navy corvette Cheonan on March 26 off the Korean west coast. South Korea last week concluded a lengthy investigation that “overwhelmingly” proved a North Korean submarine had fired the torpedo that tore the vessel apart, killing 46 sailors, mostly in the stern, while 58 escaped the main portion.

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