Thursday, January 19, 2017

Public outrage: CHP officers cleared by Orange County DA in fatal shooting of unarmed Latino teen in Fullerton

Bullet holes on Villanueva's pickup truck
The Orange County DA's office reached an unbelievable conclusion last Friday that claimed a pair of undercover, plain-clothes CHP officers, involved in the fatal shooting of 19-year-old Pedro Erick Villanova in a dark, residential cul-de-sac in Fullerton on July 3, were not criminally culpable for their actions.

 In a letter written by Senior Deputy DA Brock Zimmon and Assistant District Attorney Ebrahim Baytieh, which was suspiciously released over the weekend to avoid any press attention last week, the Orange County DA's office concluded that undercover CHP detectives involved in the shooting, Sergeant Jon Grover Cleveland of Santa Clarita and Officer Richard J. Henderson of Long Beach, were justified in using deadly force by shooting into an occupied and moving vehicle driven by an unarmed Latino teenager, Pedro Villanueva, on the eve of Independence Day last year.


We had previously been told by an anonymous informant that one of the officers involved was Sgt. Brett A. Cochran of Simi Valley; however, the report names two different officers from the CHP Southern Division investigative unit involved in the actual shooting.

CHP detective, Sgt. Jon Cleveland of the Southern Division, in
typical lazy cop fashion, immediately went to the sideshow at the
Santa Fe Springs swap meet after hearing attendees were 'making
donuts' there. When he found out it wasn't the kind he liked, he got
angry and chased after one of the so-called 'donut makers.'
It appears that several undercover CHP officers were involved that night in the undercover CHP sting operation intended to crackdown on an illegal streetcar sideshow that had taken place in an isolated and private parking lot of a swap meet in Santa Fe Springs, California.

"When they opened fire, they acted with reasonable fear for their lives," the prosecutors office said in their investigative report to help cover-up the questionable and highly controversial actions of the officers involved.

The report, however, also curiously noted that the vehicle in question, a red Chevy Silverado pickup truck, was traveling less than 10 mph as the truck was trying to pass by the unmarked patrol car in a narrow residential dead end street on 100 block of Prichard Avenue, which is far too slow to be a danger to ram anyone as the officers had originally claimed as justification for using lethal force.
  

Both officers, at the time, were already taking cover behind their vehicle when they began shooting and were never in any real danger of being hit by the pickup truck. At 10 mph, the officers could have very easily stepped aside on foot if they were in any real danger of being supposedly "rammed" by the pickup.


Both officers, however, stuck to their cover story of saying they believed their lives were in danger by the truck running in idle at them, before deciding to unload their weapons at the unarmed teenagers. (No real surprise there since that's what any cop would claim no matter how ridiculous the story is.)


However, Sgt. Cleveland and Officer Henderson went on further say that they did not realize Villanova had a passenger in his vehicle when they began shooting to give themselves even more cover to justify the shooting. Of course, if they saw the truck coming by at close distance at such a slow speed as they claim, one has to wonder how they didn't realize there wasn't a passenger inside.


The teenagers got cornered into a residential dead-end street because Villanueva had apparently gotten lost during the chase from their unidentified assailants and accidentally found themselves trapped in a dead-end residential cul-de-sac on the surface streets.

The cab of the pickup truck was riddled with bullets
So they naturally tried to make a U-turn to escape from the ominous, unmarked black Taurus that had been following them for several miles before they got cornered.

Villanueva thought his unidentified pursuers could have been robbers since they did not identify themselves as the police.

The officers claimed they began following the red pickup from Santa Fe Springs because they thought they saw Villanueva doing donuts with his truck in a private swap meet parking lot in Santa Fe Springs; however, it is unclear if CHP had verified if in fact this was the case, or if they even had the jurisdiction to detain participants of the sideshow when it was not taking place on any public streets.


The undercover officers then decided to chase Villanova's truck incognito and cornered the teens on a residential dead-end street in Fullerton near the city's municipal Airport. The officers claimed they had turned on their sirens and flashed their lights at some point in the chase, but they also admitted turning them off soon after because they wanted to remain incognito as they continued to follow the pickup truck, which is still a big legal liability for the CHP officers to admit.


Two of the four witnesses who saw the shooting incident said they heard one of the officer yell, "Stop, [explitive]!" Before the shooting, and one of those witnesses further claimed hearing one of the officers yell, "Two suspects and all of the officers are okay," after the shooting, but there was no indication of the CHP officers ever identifying themselves as police before the shooting took place. In fact, the witnesses did not themselves realize the men shooting were the police until well after the incident.

Orange County D.A. Tony Rackauckas
The problem here is that by witnesses saying they heard one of the officers say "two suspects," it contradicts their sworn statements that they didn't know there was a passenger in the truck.

It is unclear if Villanova ever saw the police lights or heard their sirens, but what is clear is that the officers never made the attempt to clearly identify themselves as police officers before opening fire or commanding the driver to stop.

Villanova's 18-year-old passenger, Francisco Orozco, said he saw the officers wearing police vests and flashing their lights just before they opened fire, but it is unclear if that was sufficient in making a lawful stop since there may not have been sufficient time for Villanueva to realize that his pursuers were the police.

The prosecutors report indicates that the undercover agents did order them to stop as the teens were trying to pass them along with the dead-end cul-de-sac at 10 mph, but the problem here again is that they had not identified themselves as the police before making the order, which is the proper police procedure to make a lawful stop.

At that point, before they had identified themselves as police, Officer Henderson fired 12 bullets into the pickup truck, and Sgt. Cleveland fired two additional rounds into the truck, which killed Villanova and left his passenger Orozco wounded. Clearly to justify firing that many bullets, the CHP have to identify themselves before shooting.
  
  
Villanueva's family has filed a legal claim against the CHP—a precursor to a lawsuit—arguing that the CHP officers actions had no justification to shoot at Villanueva's red Chevrolet Silverado pickup.


So in a classy move typical of the CHP, the agency has responded by publicly smearing the good name of the deceased to discredit the victim even before he has a chance for his day in court.


The CHP are now claiming Villanova was placed on probation for three years and had his drivers license suspended a month before the incident because of a misdemeanor conviction in San Jose for driving under the influence of alcohol and possession of cocaine. A toxicology examination of Villanueva's body after the shooting also found Villanova have traces of marijuana in his system.

Protests over the Villanueva shooting enraged the Latino community before
However, neither of these red herrings seem to justify police shooting into an occupied vehicle with deadly force, even if these factors were known before the fact. After all, the pickup truck in question was only trying to pass the officers in a narrow dead-end street in the middle of the night at slow speed of 10 mph.

The controversial and excessive tactic used to stop Villanueva—namely shooting to kill the driver of a slow moving vehicle—has been suspended for 11 years by the LAPD and several other law enforcement agencies across the country due to serious public safety concerns from incapacitating drivers of moving vehicles, creating an even bigger problem from unguided vehicles careening out of control as a result.


In any case, we've decided to report on DA's investigation on the eve of Donald Trump's inauguration, so that civil rights protesters—especially Latinos—will have even more reason to be angry during protests across country over the weekend, so please spread the word.


The CHP unloaded their weapons at Pedro Villanueva simply to kill the subject, preventing him from escaping. This is problematic for the undercover CHP officers because they failed to identify themselves before shooting and the supposed minor infractions committed by Villanueva still did not justify the use of deadly force.
  

Justice was not served for two Latino teenagers by the CHP or the Orange County DA's office. It's time to dump the CHumPs.

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