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.
It's been six months since the shooting death of an unarmed teenager by the California Highway Patrol, and we are still no closer to finding out the truth about what happened in a quiet, blind residential cul-de-sac in Fullerton, Calfornia when two unidentified men, who turned out to be undercover CHP officers, opened fire on two unarmed teens on that fateful night on July 3, one hour before Independence Day.
Unidentified undercover CHP officers shot from behind the cover of the
unidentified and unmarked squad car at the red pickup truck driven by
Pedro Villanueva as the truck tried to get by the squad car at slow
speeds through only escape route available to the frightened teens
What we do know is this: The two unidentified plain clothes CHP officers in question opened fire on and killed 19-year-old Pedro Villanueva and injured his 18-year-old passenger, Francisco Orozco, on July 3, after chasing them from a so-called "sideshow"—an unauthorized hot rod, street car event where car enthusiasts showed off their trucks and some drivers performed stunts like donuts—in an isolated swap meet parking lot in Santa Fe Springs, California, a suburb of the City of Los Angeles.
It should be made clear that the sideshow wasn't a race and wasn't held on any public streets; however, the California Highway Patrol made it their priority to secretly surveil the event as part of a statewide crack down on illegal hot rod car shows, and soon after, they shut down the sideshow, sending participants and attendees of the event needlessly scattering to the wind.
An unarmed teenager, Pedro Villanueva, was shot and killed by undercover CHP officers in Fullerton on Sunday
Two undercover California Highway Patrol officers are under investigation from the Orange County D.A.'s office and by the CHP's own Internal Affairs department after they were accused of recklessly opening fire on an unarmed teen behind the wheel of a moving vehicle in Fullerton at around 10:50 p.m. on Sunday, July 3rd, killing the driver and injuring his 18-year-old passenger with gunshots.
The aftermath of the CHP shooting in Fullerton where Pedro Villanueva was
killed by undercover CHP officers
The undercover, plain-clothes officers were part of a larger CHP task force aimed at imposing a "zero tolerance" policy in cracking down on illegal street racing events over the long holiday weekend and were monitoring one such underground hot rod "sideshow" event outside a Santa Fe Springs swap meet Sunday evening, where about 80 trucks and off-road vehicles were performing adrenaline-fueled burnouts and doing doughnuts with their vehicles.
The CHP may have been interested and gotten wind of the event upon hearing there were doughnuts at the event.
As uniformed officers closed in on the event, the attendees of the sideshow event scattered, including 19-year-old Pedro Erik Villanueva of Canoga Park and his passenger, 18-year-old Francisco Orozco of Santa Fe Springs, who were spectators of the event, in Villanueva's red Chevy Silverado pickup truck. Villanueva and Orozco were merely car enthusiasts among the audience of the illegal street car event and were not participating in the dangerous stunts performed by other "sideshow" participants.
