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The California Attorney General’s Office said Monday it had filed manslaughter and assault charges against a former Los Angeles police officer who is accused of shooting and killing a mentally disabled man in an off-duty altercation in a Costco store in 2019.
Salvador Sanchez, 32, a seven-year LAPD veteran at the time of the June 2019 shooting, was arrested Monday morning in Riverside County. His bail was set at $ 155,000, according to jail records.
Sanchez is accused of killing Kenneth French, 32, and injuring his elderly parents during a brief confrontation inside the Costco store in Corona, about 80 miles southeast of Los Angeles.
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Los Angeles Police Officer on leave Salvador Sanchez and Kenneth French can be seen struggling before the shooting.
(LAPD)
Sanchez was shopping at the store with his family and was holding his 1 1/2 year old son when he was punched from behind by a Frenchman. Sanchez was knocked to the ground and opened fire, fatally injuring French and seriously injuring his parents, Russell, 58, and Paola French, 59, police said.
Sanchez shot French four times in the back and shoulder, his mother once in the stomach and his father once in the back, Corona Police Chief George Johnstone said.
“When there is reason to believe that a crime has been committed, we will seek justice,” said Attorney General Rob Bonta. “That is exactly the purpose of these accusations: to pursue justice after an independent and careful review of the evidence and the law. Ultimately, any loss of life is a tragedy and being allowed to carry a A gun doesn’t mean you aren’t responsible for how you use it.No matter who you are, no one is above the law.
Sanchez said he believed he was shot when he was punched by French, who lived with his parents and had the mental abilities of a teenager, the Los Angeles Times reported. French was withdrawn from his mental illness medication due to other health complications, which may have caused him to go wild, said Dale Galipo, the family’s French lawyer.
Bonta’s charges came after the Riverside County District Attorney refused to indict Sanchez in criminal proceedings. A grand jury did not file an indictment in September 2019.
The encounter in the Corona store lasted only 3.8 seconds. The grand jury was given a clip of shoddy surveillance video and the testimony of several witnesses, some of whom had been subpoenaed.
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Kenneth French and his mother, Paola French. (Louana D’Cunha via AP, File)
(PA)
“I believe he believed at the time that he was shot,” Riverside County District Attorney Michael Hestrin said at a 2019 press conference when it was announced that he did not there would be no charges.
“He told witnesses about it very quickly after being shot and went back several times looking for blood on the back of his head,” Hestrin added. “So this is the evidence. This is the evidence the grand jury heard. And it comes from many witnesses around the incident. Yes. The officer, after being beaten, thought he was shot and there was an active shooter in front of him. “
On Monday, David Winslow, Sanchez’s lawyer, called his client’s arrest a “political coup that does absolutely nothing to protect the public.”
“The arrest of Sal Sanchez is the product of the California Attorney General’s politically motivated program to prosecute the police,” Winslow said in a statement. “Sal was not acting as a police officer when he was attacked. He was off duty, acting like a father in self-defense and protecting his child.”
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Sanchez faces one count of intentional homicide and two counts of assault with a semi-automatic firearm. The LAPD said he was fired from the agency in July 2020, but declined to comment further on Sanchez’s arrest.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
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