“A Southern California police officer gave a man less than a second to raise his hands before opening fire and killing him, a federal appeals court noted Friday in rejecting the officer’s request to dismiss a wrongful death lawsuit against him.
The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said Tustin Police Officer Osvaldo Villarreal couldn’t reasonably have feared for his safety when he shot 31-year-old Benny Herrera after responding to a domestic dispute call in December 2011.
That determination ran counter to the Orange County district attorney’s office, which said in 2013 that the shooting was reasonable and justified because Villarreal fired after Herrera ignored orders to show his hands.
A video captured by a police dashboard camera shows otherwise, according to the 9th Circuit judges who cited the footage.
“Less than a second elapsed between Villarreal commanding Herrera to take his hand from his pocket and Villarreal shooting him,” the court wrote. “Just as Herrera’s hand came out of his pocket, Villarreal fired two shots in rapid succession … The command and the shots were almost simultaneous.”
The video has not been made public and is under a court seal.
The seven-page review of the case by Orange County prosecutors does not mention the existence of a video and appears to rely heavily on Villarreal’s own statements.
Sonia Balleste, the senior deputy district attorney who wrote the review, said Friday that she didn’t immediately recall the case or why the review didn’t mention the video but that she was sure she “looked at all the evidence that was available.”
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-tustin-shooting-20160917-snap-story.html?platform=hootsuite
“The seven-page review of the case by Orange County prosecutors does not mention the existence of a video and appears to rely heavily on Villarreal’s own statements.”
In other words he did the usual and lied in his report
That has become the standard of todays LEO
Lie to make the story fit the narrative
But that is going to change
This is the age of video and for every lying cop there is a video to match
This coward never should have had a badge
And most certainly not a gun
You are not a tough guy simply because you have 200 to get your back
You are simply a coward with back up
