If the question of the trial was whether a jury will trust a convicted felon's word over that of an alleged criminal with no record, the answer is no. While some jurors said they didn't feel fully satisfied and many were frustrated by what they saw as a sloppy police investigation, they agreed they couldn't say Mohsin wasn't acting in lawful self-defense beyond reasonable doubt.
Judge Kahn asked Mohsin, who'd remained stoic throughout the verdict, whether he had anything to say to the jury. He smiled widely, looked up at the ceiling, shook his head, and wiped his face with his hands. Speechless. "I think that is his thanks," the judge said. He served Mohsin a stern parting admonishment: "Stay miles away from any firearm. Miles away from any firearm."
Courtesy of Teresa Caffese
Cameras recorded two guys Mohsin says provided the muscle during the alleged robbery.
Lauren Smiley
Jamie Hatch escaped the shot car unscathed.
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Mohsin is definitely planning to stay miles away from the Bayview. That's probably wise: Third Street has not forgotten him. When he showed up with the lawyers, judge, and police to examine the store before the trial, some local residents spotted him, said a man who identified himself as John Talley, the older brother of the man who burned the store. "What the heck is he doing out here?" Talley asked. "They was fittin' to beat his ass." The elder Talley still seems enraged about the shooting: "Arabs got it made in the United States. I've been in jail a lot of times and I've never seen one. Now if he were a black man, he'd be in the penitentiary."
Most in the Bayview have never heard Mohsin's version of events, and assume he was a vigilante pushed to the edge for being robbed once too often or, at the very least, a trigger-happy kid who freaked out and did something stupid. While not even other Arab store owners in the neighborhood would defend him, both the merchants and several people in the neighborhood, even John Talley, agreed that 25 years would have been too harsh, since Smith didn't die. "They don't know how it is down here," one shopkeeper said.
After his acquittal, Mohsin told SF Weekly he doesn't regret pulling the trigger: "I didn't do nothing wrong," he said. "I did what every other citizen would have done. ... I'm not a vigilante that would just try to do stuff. I did my stuff to prevent anything from happening, and it came up to a point where there was no chance" for an alternative.
Mike Cohen, Smith's civil attorney, said his client was unhappy with the verdict: "She felt it was the jury saying it was right for him to shoot her. It just didn't feel right to her at all."
Despite the judge's warning, Mohsin will be near firearms quite soon if he gets his way: He plans to put in his application with Oakland's police academy next month. He says he hopes his children won't have to work a day at a liquor store in their lives.
