Taxpayers: Are You Okay Picking Up the Tab for Walnut Creek's Mehserle Rally?

The Walnut Creek Police Department and the Contra Costa Sheriff's Department have said they have no plans to send a bill to organizers of the racially charged pro- and anti-Johannes Mehserle protests that took place outside the Walnut Creek courthouse last Monday.

A Contra Costa Times analysis estimated that it cost more than $60,000, most of it in labor costs, for the two agencies to coordinate efforts to make sure the rally stayed peaceful. 

Walnut Creek Police Chief Joel Bryden estimated that about 500 people from both sides demonstrated outside the courthouse on Ygnacio Valley Road. The rally was loud and closed down traffic along Ygnacio Valley Road, but it turned out to be peaceful with no arrests, no injuries and no damage to property.

Bryden called the rally a "success" in that it never got out of control and that both sides were able to express their viewpoints, even heatedly, but without anyone getting hurt. 

The July 19 event was touched off by people sympathetic to Johannes Mehserle, who believe the former BART police officer was treated unfairly by the criminal justice system.  Mehserle was convicted earlier this month of involuntary manslaughter in the shooting death of BART passenger on January 1, 2009.

The Mehserle supporters, who were said to include members of law enforcement, organized the demonstration to last about three hours.

But supporters of Oscar Grant and his family, after learning of the pro-Mehserle demonstration, quickly mobilized a counter-protest and arrived in large numbers outside the courthouse and at times out-shouted the pro-Mehserle group.