Justice for Pedro: Family of teen killed by CHP seeks justice by filing legal claim against agency

The aftermath of a deadly confrontation between an unarmed teen and the CHP along a dead-end street in Fullerton. From the
crime scene, the truck was clearly not aimed at the undercover CHP officers as the truck tried to get by the unmarked patrol car.

The family of a 19-year-old teenager fatally shot by two undercover CHP officers on July 3 in Fullerton, California, has filed a legal claim, a required precursor step to an actual lawsuit, against the CHP and the state, saying the teen posed no immediate threat to the officers and was unarmed, when officers recklessly open fired on the teen, killing him, and injuring his 18-year-old passenger in the right arm with a stray bullet.

The victim, Pedro Villanueva, who was shot by undercover CHP officers without
an opportunity to surrender

The claim filed on July 19 said the officers were unjustified when they shot at the red Chevy Silverado pickup truck driven by Pedro Erik Villanueva on July 3 that left the Pacoima resident dead and his 18-year-old passenger, Francisco Orozco, who survived, wounded from gunshot wounds.

Submitting a legal claim is a requirement before a lawsuit can be filed against a public agency in the State of California. If the claim is rejected, however, it clears the way for attorney of the victims to file lawsuits against the state agency.

The claim alleges that the two teens were followed by an unmarked police car with undercover CHP officers who never revealed they were the police before gunshots rang out from the officers in question.

"These are two boys—18 and 19 years old—who were followed out of a parking lot by an unmarked CHP vehicle and at no time in the seven to 10 minutes they were followed by this car did they ever use a siren, loud speaker or red and blue lights," the victims' attorney, Paul Kiesel, said.

"They have no indication at any point in time they were law enforcement. In fact, they didn't until they fired their weapons into the vehicle and killed Pedro Villanueva."

The shooting of an unarmed Latino teen by CHP undercover officers
who failed to identify themselves was a major screw-up

Earlier that night, the two teens had gone to a Santa Fe Springs swap meet where they attended a late-night "sideshow," a gathering of car enthusiasts, where some of the attending motorists perform burnouts or do doughnuts for exhibition, while others admired the vehicles and the driving, Kiesel said.

According to the surviving passenger of the vehicle, Francisco Orozco, the two teenagers were merely observing and being entertained by the spectacle as street car enthusiasts but were not participating in any of the dangerous stunts performed by some of the attendees.

Villanueva had apparently borrowed his father's red Chevy Silverado pickup truck to go see the event which was held in a swap meet parking lot in Santa Fe Springs, California. Thus, the extent of his participation and involvement in the event was merely as a passive spectator.

Around 10:50 p.m., as uniformed CHP officers were closing in on the illegal street car racing event to shut it down, attendees of the event scattered to the wind. Villanueva fled from the event in his dad's 2015 Chevy Silverado pickup truck with Orozco in tow as a passenger.

Soon they were followed by a suspicious and ominous unidentified black car whom they had no idea who the occupants of the car were as the undercover CHP officers inside the vehicle never made any attempts to identify themselves to the teenagers.

"They were actually lost when they were trying to get away from this car," Kiesel said. "They had no idea where they were."

Officers aggressively pursued Villanueva under cover with their headlights off for about five miles until the pickup truck was cornered into a dead-end street on Pritchard Avenue in Fullerton, California. As officers drew their weapons, Villanueva made a U-turn in the residential cul-de-sac and tried to drive past the unmarked car along the only narrow route available to get out of the dead-end street.

The aftermath of the shooting in Fullerton

As the pickup truck tried to escape, the plain clothes officers opened fire on the truck, still having not identified themselves to the teenagers.

The officers later said Villanueva tried to ram them; however, given the only access road into the dead-end cul-de-sac was too narrow to definitively make that determination, it appears that Villanueva could have equally been trying to escape what he thought were a couple robbers trying to do him and his passenger some harm.

Villanueva was killed by the bullets while his passenger was hit in the right arm by stray bullets. The truck lost control when the bullets began to fly and sideswiped a car and ultimately hit the unmarked CHP cruiser.

To date, there has been no explanation why the two undercover CHP officers never made any attempt to ever identify themselves as police officers or call for backup from other marked CHP cruisers to safely pull over the teens to peacefully resolved the dangerously escalating situation.

There was simply no valid explanation for an unmarked CHP cruiser to be involved in a 90 m.p.h. on public streets, while keeping its headlights off, without making any attempts to pull the subjects over using proper police procedures to diffuse a dangerously ambiguous situation that put the public's safety in danger.

“If a car is following me, it’s unmarked with no lights and doesn’t look like cops, I wouldn’t stop for them either,” said Mohammad Walid, an 18-year-old former classmate of Villanueva’s at Chatsworth High School.

Capt. David Moeller of the CHP Santa Fe Springs Area office

“Pedro wouldn't have charged at police with his truck if he knew that they were police,” another former classmate of Villanueva, Maxwell Zairian, said. “What was he supposed to do if he didn't know what was going on?”

On top of failing to identify themselves as police officers, the two undercover CHP officers shot at a moving vehicle, creating a much more dangerous situation of now having a truck barreling out of control down a residential road.

“First, it is difficult to shoot at a moving car with accuracy. Missed shots can hit bystanders or others in the vehicle,” the U.S. Dept. of Justice has said previously in an investigation into the Cleveland Police Department’s policy on shooting at moving vehicles in 2014. “Second, if the driver is disabled by the shot, the vehicle may become unguided, making it potentially more dangerous.”

The two undercover CHP officers also failed to ever give the teenagers an opportunity to surrender peacefully before shooting at them with deadly force. Somehow that seems morally and ethically wrong to its core.

Is a lawsuit imminent? Or Will the CHP settle this case before any lawsuit is
filed by any of the victims involved?

"One of the goals of this lawsuit is to see to it that the CHP adopt a policy that prohibits them from firing into a moving vehicle," Kiesel said.

The shooting is already under administrative review from the CHP's internal affairs department, and the action of the two undercover CHP officers are under investigation by the Orange County District Attorney's Office.

The identity of the officers involved in the shooting remain hidden by the CHP and Fullerton Police Department who have knowledge of the matter.

The fate of the two involved undercover CHP officers in the department is also being kept a secret. Thus, we have a conspiracy of cover-ups at the highest level of government to preserve the interests of authority over the rights of the people.