This is crazy! This man goes to Target to apply for a job and ends up being approached and shot 15 times by the police, resulting in his murder. The cops claimed he was “acting bizarre” and tried to slander him, talking about how he had depression in his past. They will use anything to make us look crazy enough that we had to be “put down” as if we are rabid animals.
Family of man killed by West Covina PD alleges excessive force
http://www.sgvtribune.com/news/ci_12490891
WEST COVINA – The family of a Cal State L.A. student who was fatally shot 15 times by two police officers filed a claim last month alleging reckless intent and excessive force by the West Covina Police Department.
West Covina officers Stephen Delgadillo and Enrique Macias shot Omar Francisco Garcia, 24, on Nov.17 in a Target parking lot hours after he told his mother he was heading to the store to apply for a job.
Attorney Greg Owen, who is representing Garcia’s mother, Irma Herrera, and sisters Michelle Celeste Garcia and Jazmin Ortega, said he thinks the case is valued in excess of $10 million.
A claim is the first step before filing a lawsuit.
“It is very difficult to understand how two police officers needed to shoot an unarmed, 145-pound man with no violent history, no training in martial arts, who was on his way to get a job,” Owen said.
“Assuming for a minute that he did resist arrest, the first fatal shot would have stopped him. There’s no excuse for 15 shots.”
Police Chief Frank Wills denied the attorney’s allegations, including his claim that the department condones excessive force.
He said the officers’ actions were justified because they were acting in self-defense. Both officers are still working patrol for the police department, Wills said.
“I stand behind them 100 percent for every single action they took that night,” Wills said. “(The officers) did what they were trained to do. They know they did right, but now they’re going to be dragged into court.”
Delgadillo and Macias responded to a call of a “suspicious” person in the Target parking lot about 5:45 p.m. When they arrived, they encountered Garcia, who police say attacked them with their own baton.
One of the officers tried to use a Taser on him, but a cartridge became dislodged, prompting both officers to fire with their .45-caliber pistols. Seven of the 15 shots fired were fatal. Some were shot at handshake range.
Garcia also sustained blunt force trauma to his face, according to the autopsy report.
The baton was found bloodied next to the body of Garcia, who was handcuffed and pronounced dead at the scene when the coroner arrived, according to the autopsy report.
“From my perspective, an individual was trespassing where he didn’t belong,” Wills said. “He assaulted two of my best officers and knocked them to the ground.”
According to the claim, filed on May 18 with the West Covina City Clerk’s office, Garcia was a religious man who at the time of his death was wearing a bracelet which read, “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning is now, and ever shall be.”
“Omar Garcia was not engaging in any illegal conduct, did not pose a threat to anyone, and was completely unarmed,” the claim states. “The shooting of Omar Garcia was unjustified, and the use of force was objectively unreasonable, unwarranted and excessive.”
Garcia had no drugs or alcohol in his system, according to the coroner’s report.
On the day of the incident, police said Garcia was acting “bizarre” and that he had a history of psychological problems.
Owen said that Garcia previously suffered from depression and was prescribed medication for that in the past, but was not prescribed any psychiatric drugs at the time he was killed.
Owen believes there is strong evidence to conclude that the officers either overreacted or mistook Garcia for another suspect possibly connected to a shooting in city earlier in the day.
Earlier the day of the shooting, an off-duty sheriff’s deputy had been in a car-to-car shooting, which had touched off a manhunt as police scoured parts of West Covina for the shooter.
On Nov. 17, the sheriff’s department was called onto the scene to perform an investigation into the shooting to determine whether the response by the officers followed protocol.
All officer-involved shootings that occur in Los Angeles County require an investigative report, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
“There have not been findings yet,” said District Attorney spokeswoman Shiara Davila-Morales. “It is still under review, so nothing has been turned over to the (West Covina) police chief yet.”
These reviews typically last six months, Davila-Morales said.
Lt. Gil Carillo of the Los Angeles County sheriff’s Homicide Bureau was among the deputies that responded to the scene. He said he believes the shooting was justified, but he is still awaiting the findings in the report.
Owen said the department has refused to release information pertaining to this case, such as Target’s surveillance video.
“They’re really forcing our hand and forcing us to file a lawsuit,” Owen said.
