OAKLAND, Calif. -- BART police Officer Anthony Pirone testified Wednesday that Oscar Grant III was uncooperative and had to be pulled off of a train when he and other officers responded to reports that a group of passengers had been involved in a fight at Oakland's Fruitvale station.

Testifying in the preliminary hearing for former BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle, who's accused of murdering Grant, 22, at the station about 2 a.m. on New Year's Day, Pirone said he approached a group of people on the station's platform who matched a dispatcher's description of five black males wearing black clothes who had been in a fight on a train.

Pirone, who smiled when he took the witness stand and was questioned by Mehserle's lawyer, Michael Rains, said he was able to detain three males but Grant and Michael Greer ran back onto a train and he lost track of a woman who was with the five men.

Pirone, who was the first officer on the scene, said he pulled out his Taser because there was a large group of people who weren't complying with his commands.

Pirone, who's on paid administrative leave pending the conclusion of several investigations into the incident, said Grant, a Hayward man who worked as a butcher at an Oakland grocery store, entered one car on the train and then went to the next car.

The officer said he eventually reached Grant, grabbed his elbow and ordered him to go to a wall on the station's platform where his partner, Officer Marysol Domenici, was keeping an eye on the other three men.

Grant "was cursing" and said things such as, "Why are you f---ing with me" and "You ain't s---," Pirone said.

He said he then went back to the train and grabbed Greer.

The officer said when Greer assumed a combative stance and clenched his fists, he grabbed Greer by his hair and "took him to the floor."

Pirone described his maneuver as "a hair-pull take-down."

The purpose of the preliminary hearing, which has met for five days and won't resume until next Wednesday, is to determine if there's enough evidence to have Mehserle, 27, ordered to stand trial on murder charges.

Rains has said that Mehserle meant to use his Taser on Grant and fired his gun by mistake. He's also said that Mehserle shouldn't be charged with murder because he didn't exhibit malice during the incident.

Pirone is the fourth BART police officer to testify on the witness stand on Mehserle's behalf so far, following Domenici, Jon Woffinden and Emery Knudtson.

The officers have generally described Grant as being uncooperative and said that they encountered an unruly and noisy group of people on the platform at the Fruitvale station.

In lengthy and aggressive cross-examinations of Domenici, Woffinden and Knudtson during the past three court sessions, prosecutor David Stein, who hasn't yet questioned Pirone, has alleged that the officers exaggerated the facts about the incident to justify Mehserle shooting Grant and to make it appear that they were in more danger than they really were.

But Domenici, Woffinden and Knudtson all said their testimony was truthful and they didn't exaggerate anything.

Questioning Domenici Wednesday before Pirone took the witness stand, Stein asked if she considered whether the reason that Grant and his friends kept "popping up" from their positions on the ground was that Pirone "was man-handling and being over-aggressive" when he pulled Greer off the train.

But Domenici said she doesn't think Pirone was being over-aggressive.

Oakland civil rights attorney John Burris, who has filed a $50 million lawsuit against BART, Mehserle, Pirone and Domenici on behalf of Grant's family, said in an interview on Jan. 26 that he thinks Pirone was "the instigator of the entire event" and set in motion a chain of events that led to Mehserle shooting Grant.

Burris also wrote a letter to Alameda County District Attorney Tom Orloff asking him to consider filing criminal charges against Pirone, but Orloff hasn't done so.

Pirone told Rains Wednesday that he has voluntarily given statements about the incident to police and prosecutors even though he's been advised that he's under investigation for possible criminal activity.

His attorney, William Rapoport, sat in the front row during his testimony Wednesday.

Domenici, whose attorney, Alison Berry-Wilkinson, also sat in the front row, said the situation on the Fruitvale station's platform was so chaotic after Mehserle shot Grant that she thought to herself, "If I have to I'm going to have to kill someone" and was concerned that she only had two bullets.

Stein and Alameda County Superior Court Judge C. Don Clay, who's presiding over the hearing, both asked Domenici who she planned to shoot first, but Domenici didn't give a direct answer.

Domenici's testimony continued from Wednesday afternoon, when she said Grant, a 22-year-old Hayward man who was unarmed, "didn't follow my command to sit" even though she ordered him to do so multiple times.

Domenici said when she pushed back one of Grant's friends, Jackie Bryson, "Grant grabs my left arm and is holding on to me."

Domenici said Grant crouched down at one point but "never sat down on his bottom" and repeatedly cursed.

Domenici, who has been a BART officer for more than four and a half years, said Grant apparently was referring to the situation on the Fruitvale station's platform about 2 a.m. on Jan. 1. She said she and other officers responded to reports that there was a fight on a BART train.

Domenici said another of Grant's friends, Michael Greer, "was very uncooperative with police" and refused to get off the train until her partner, Officer Tony Pirone, grabbed him, pulled him off the train and eventually pushed him onto the ground.

Mehserle's lawyer, Michael Rains, told Judge C. Don Clay, who's presiding over the hearing, that he is calling Domenici and other BART officers to the witness stand in an attempt to prove the defense's contention that, "This isn't murder because there's an absence of malice" on Mehserle's part.

Rains said Mehserle, who's free on $3 million bail, "was reacting to a struggling, resistant Mr. Grant."

Last week Rains said that Mehserle meant to use his Taser on Grant and fired his gun by mistake.

Rains said he wanted Clay to allow officer Pirone to testify that Mehserle told him before the shooting incident that he planned to use his Taser on Grant, but the judge said such testimony would be inadmissible because it's hearsay.

The defense lawyer also said he wanted to be allowed to present evidence about Grant's felony convictions and short prison terms in order to demonstrate "Mr. Grant's character for aggression and violence," but Clay said such evidence is irrelevant and also would not be admitted.

The judge also decided not to allow the former BART police officer's statements to others about the shooting unless he testifies. The defendant rarely testifies in this type of hearing where a judge decides if there's enough evidence for a trial.

Legal analyst Michael Cardoza said the defense is pandering to public opinion by soliciting testimony from three fellow BART police officers with Mehserle when he shot and killed Grant early New Year's Day.

However, Clay said he will allow Rains to present a witness who will play in court part of an enhanced, slow-motion video of the interaction between Grant and Pirone and Mehserle just before the shooting.

Referring to videos of the incident that were played in court by prosecutor David Stein last week, Clay said, "I don't need someone to tell me what I've seen."

But he said a slow-motion video "from the point when Grant is on the ground to the point where he (Mehserle) shoots Mr. Grant is relevant" to Mehserle's state of mind at the time of the shooting, which is a key issue in the case.

Domenici, Officer Jon Woffinden, who was Mehserle's partner that night, and Officer Emery Knudtson all testified Tuesday that they feared for their safety at the Fruitvale station because people on the platform and on the crowded train were unruly and noisy and were calling them names.

Knudtson said he and other officers were on edge because there had been several reports that night of BART passengers carrying guns. He also said he tackled and detained a man who threw a cell phone at him.

Woffinden said that shortly before the Fruitvale station incident he and Mehserle had responded to an incident at the West Oakland station in which a man with a gun had jumped from the platform level to the ground.

Near the end of a lengthy cross-examination of Woffinden that began on Wednesday and concluded Tuesday, Stein suggested that in Woffinden's police report he had "exaggerated the facts to justify Officer Mehserle shooting Oscar Grant" and "to make it appear that you were in more danger than you really were."

But Woffinden said he didn't exaggerate anything and was truthful in his report and his testimony.

Stein also alleged that Knudtson left out many important details in the report that he wrote about the shooting incident.

Knudtson said he tried to include as much information as possible when he did his report the morning of Jan. 1 and left some things out only because he was exhausted after being up for more than 24 hours and on duty for more than 20 hours.

Domenici will continue her testimony when Mehserle's hearing resumes Wednesday morning.

Pirone apparently will follow her on the witness stand. Rains told Clay that he planned to call Pirone today if time allowed.