[ad_1]
Six California police officers responded to a call about a weakened man who had not responded in his car and fired 55 shots in 3.5 seconds, according to an independent report on the use of the force commanded by the city of Vallejo.
The report's author, David Blake, concluded that the tactics used by Vallejo Police Department officers in Willie McCoy, 20, were "reasonable given my background and my instructor experience distance shooting as well as the applied psychology of human factors ".
Blake, a police consultant and retired officer, also wrote in the report released this week that the use of lethal force was "objectively reasonable and necessary," given the circumstances. The officers said they saw a handgun on McCoy's lap and thought he was catching it when he woke up suddenly.
The death of McCoy, a rapper from the Bay Area, during a forced march on February 9th at Taco Bell, prompted the community to hold the police to account and to conduct an independent investigation into the issue. all the training of the department and on an alleged racial profiling.
In April, city officials said they were inviting United States Department of Justice mediators to be heard by residents and to create a "community participation plan." Some locals, however, say that there is still much to do in their town of about 122,000 inhabitants after McCoy became the 16th person to die at the hands of Vallejo officers since 2011 – the highest rate of people killed by police per capita in northern California. The majority of those killed are black and Latino men.
The independent report was completed on May 17, almost two months after the release of the Bodycam camera videos, following pressure from the McCoy family to make them public.
The exact number of bullets fired by each of the six officers was not known before, but Blake's report revealed that agent Ryan McMahon had been fired once, which agent Colin Eaton had fired 13 times, that agent Jordon Patzer had fired 12 times, that agents Bryan Glick and Anthony Romero-Cano fired 11 times each, and agent Mark Thompson fired 7 times.
It is unclear how many of these bullets hit McCoy, but family lawyers said he had been hit about 25 times. The six officers resumed their duties three weeks after the shooting.
Taco Bell employees called the police for a welfare check after finding that McCoy was not answering in his silver Mercedes during driving.
When the police arrived at the scene, they discovered that they had discovered that the car was locked and that McCoy had a gun on his lap.
Police said that McCoy's gun had been stolen and that his family claimed that he might have had it for his protection.
Police on the spot have come up with a plan to block McCoy's car inside the pass to prevent any irregular movement when he wakes up. Eventually, they saw McCoy move and appear to scratch his arm, as shown in the police bodycam video.
McCoy stood up suddenly and seemed to stoop. The officers shouted, "Show me your hands!" and shot him in a few seconds.
Police chief Andrew Bidou described the situation as "tragedy".
In his 51-page report, Blake said that he had received police reports, interviews given by agents, and camera footage. Police officers interviewed during their interviews said they were "scared" and feared McCoy would shoot them.
"Officers do not have to wait until we point a gun at them to take the necessary steps to save their lives," Blake wrote.
City lawyer Claudia Quintana said the report, which was released this week, is separate from an investigation by the Solano County District Attorney's Office on the shooting.
"The death of Mr. McCoy is not the desired outcome by the city of Vallejo and our community," she said in a statement. "We understand how difficult this situation is for everyone involved, and in the end we all want the same thing: that all people can go home and find their families, and we will continue to work tirelessly to identify Strategies that allow us to: achieve favorable outcomes that are desirable in difficult situations such as the one discussed in the report. "
But Melissa Nold, a McCoy family lawyer, said Thursday that the report "continues to suggest that officers should be able to respond to their irrational fear and unlawfully kill people."
She added that it was unreasonable that the police "expect that a sleeping man who does not sleep will wake up waking up from a deep sleep without moving" .
It also stated that such reports on the use of force are paid for by the cities and "are by no means independent or impartial".
Vallejo hired Blake for up to $ 8,000 to examine the use of force by agents when McCoy passed away. The Sacramento Police Department has also engaged this year in response to the shooting of a black man, Stephon Clark, in 2018. The two police officers involved have not been charged with the death from Clark following an investigation by Sacramento County attorneys.
Blake could not be contacted immediately for comment on Thursday.
[ad_2]
Source link