so now you're a fortune teller?
you know exactly what would happen if he diod have a gun?
first off he didn't reach in his pocket, he had nothing in it and no reason to.
his hands and wrists were restrained and don't tell me he was in shock because it escalated like that, you don't know that.
he did have a look of shock on his face.
he had to look around and look back down to figure out what just happened.
oh and then there's this (At a January 30 bail hearing, Rains told the court that Mehserle had only carried a Taser for a few shifts prior to the January 1 shooting, and mistakenly deployed his service weapon when he thought Grant was reaching for a gun.[3] Rains claimed that some witnesses heard Mehserle say "Get back, I am going to taze him.")
c'mon, i think it's fairly obvious now.

oh and after re-reading the end to your first comment you said he didn't comply and was shot, was there anything about that i didn't understand? yea.
cops only use (by law) their guns when their life or someone elses is in stake.
noone was in any real danger.
i still argue that, even if he was trying to use his taser, even that would have been a little overboard.

they said he was a rookie cop. it would be easy to believe he didn't remember what side it was on.
did you see his reaction? he was obviously surprised.
and i never said he was handcuffed, just restrained.
i'm pretty sure your perspective on this comes from being a cop but i'm not implying he was a bad cop or meant to do this, just that he was inexperienced and negligent and that led to a man's death.
manslaughter, pure and simple.
oh and he was heard, by the witnesses up close, saying "i'm not resisting man, come on i have a daughter"
that's a pretty good indicator of submission.

he was on the bround, hands behind his back, then he had the bullet in the back.
and i'm sure (as it looked) that the cop meant to use a tazer and not his pistol which i GARAUNTEE you will be his defense, not that it looked like he had a gun.
you're reasoning is dumb.
noone thought he had a gun.
it was manslaughter at very least. you fail.

meow!!!