[ad_1]
The police officer was driving east on State Route 91 in Southern California on Friday night, taking his police dog to a vet, authorities said when he was crossing Hannah Williams, aged 17. years, which also led to the east.
They said that at one point, both vehicles hit each other. Police officer Fullerton, on duty and in uniform, shot and killed the teenager.
What exactly happened on the highway – where the officer and Hannah were at the time of the shooting, how the vehicles came to rest and what preceded the shooting – is unclear. But the meeting became a new police shootout intended to attract the attention of the public. Hannah's family members and civil rights activists searched for answers and claimed that the murder was not justified.
The Orange County Attorney's Office, which is investigating the shooting, said Tuesday that a replica handgun was found near Hannah at the scene. But he refused to give more details, including in particular where he was found and how, if any, he could have figured in the deadly encounter.
Hannah's family wants an autopsy independent of her body, disclosure of any sequence of the shootings, a state investigation, and the officer, who has not been publicly identified, is suspended without pay, according to a door -speak of the family.
"We want the public to know right away how many times our daughter has been touched and if she has been hit in the back," said Benson Williams, Hannah's father, in a statement on Tuesday. "Why, Lord?"
Police shootings have attracted increased attention across the country, but the speech in California has been particularly keen in recent months.
This week, the state legislature passed one of the bills, which would facilitate criminal prosecution of agents using lethal force. Another bill would require law enforcement to clearly define their policies on the use of force and improve officer training on de-escalation.
Authorities reported that Hannah was killed around 7 pm Friday in Anaheim, California, the Orange County Prosecutor's Office said in a statement that the officer had seen her drive at "high speed" before the shooting.
After the policeman fired at her, Hannah was taken to the hospital where she died, authorities said.
In his statement, the Orange County Attorney's Office stated that the replica handgun found near Hannah was designed to look like a Beretta 92 FS.
A spokeswoman for the office refused to answer any further questions about the case, citing the ongoing investigation.
The Fullerton Police Department said that he was also investigating the shooting to determine if the officer had violated his policies, but he declined to provide more details about this encounter. The officer is on paid administrative leave, according to a spokesman.
A spokesman for the Anaheim Police Department, who was also investigating the encounter, declined to provide additional details about the shooting. Governor Gavin Newsom's office did not immediately answer the question of whether the state would investigate the death.
Reverend Jarrett Maupin, a human rights activist and family spokesperson, said that witnesses told him and the family that they had seen Hannah waving her mobile phone before shooting.
Mr. Maupin did not know whether Hannah or a family member owned the replica handgun, but added that it could not have been taken into account in the shootings because it would have been found inside the vehicle and would not have been in his hands. A spokesperson for the District Attorney's Office would not immediately state where the replica handgun was found.
Efforts to join Hannah's family on Tuesday night were unsuccessful.
Earlier Tuesday, at a press conference, family members said they would not respond to media questions until the police would publish more information.
"We are looking for answers about what really happened that day and night," said Lynette Campbell, Hannah's godmother, reading a statement written by Hannah's father.
Ms. Campbell testified that Hannah was a supervisor and that she loved volunteering at community health shows with her parents.
Representatives of the family said at the press conference that they did not know where Hannah was driving Friday. Mr. Maupin stated that Hannah was using a rental car when the shooting occurred.
The family is asking for an independent autopsy of Hannah's body because she fears that "the police are delaying the publication of the official results of the autopsy and continues to hide from the public information about the nature of the shootings," according to a statement from M Maupin.
[ad_2]
Source link