Sonoma County D.A.: No criminal charges for sheriff's deputy in Andy Lopez shooting

[happyslug]

23. As I said before, and as stated in the Report of the DA, this was a justified Killing NOT murder

You may not like the situation, but the LAW takes the position that anyone charged with a crime MUST be given the benefit of any doubts in the facts. If any facts are in dispute, the law MUST accept the facts most favorable to the Defendant (in this case the police officers).

In this case the Police officer saw someone with an AK. That the "Ak" was a toy is NOT at issue, the law MUST accept the position the Police Officer that saw it as a real AK UNLESS it can be proved that belief of the officer was unreasonable under the circumstances (and in this case, the toy looked close enough to a real AK for the law to assume the Police saw a real AK).

AKs are illegal in California, thus the Police had the right to confiscate that illegal weapon. Police have the right to confront anyone on any public street and ask them to comply with their orders, if such orders relate to public safety, and confiscating an illegal weapon is such an order. In this case the Police saw a youth with an illegal weapon and demanded he put it down so they could confiscate it.

Police also have the right to defend themselves against what they view as a danger to themselves. If the Victim had had a real AK, it was capable of taking both Police Officers down, thus if the Police Officers believe the Victim was bearing the weapon on them, they had the right to defend themselves by opening fire first. The officer (and other witnesses) report the Victim turned to face the officers and only then did the officer open fire. The Autopsy shows that all hits were to the Victim's front as he faced the officers.

The witnesses do have variation as to the position of the Toy AK, but all admit it was in the Victim's hands when he turned to face the officers. The Officers, seeing the movement of the AK, feared that it was being brought to bear on them had the right then to defend themselves by opening fire.

That the Victim had a unloaded BB toy replica AK is unimportant. On the issue of Self Defense it is what the Officers THOUGHT they were facing and if that belief was reasonable under the circumstances. Given the shape of the BB gun and the movement of the Victim and the gun just before the police opened fire, it is reasonable for the Police to believe they were facing a real AK and of someone who was going to use it on them. That ends the case for criminal charges on the Police Officers.

As I have said otherwise, the issue of training, tactics etc can be brought up in a Civil Action, along with the idea the Victim was complying with the order of the officers the best he knew how (The autopsy indicates the first round missed, the second round only grazed the victim, the other five shots were the killers, all indicate a body that was falling to the ground) . In Civil Suites the burden of proof is not beyond a reasonable doubt and since we are only talking about money, the reasonableness of the officers can be litigated. In a criminal actions the law assumes the Police Act reasonably, but no such assumption is made in a Civil Suit, the issue of reasonableness of the Police Officers is reserved to a jury.

Thus this is NOT murder, given the facts released in the report. That does NOT stop a civil suit, given the autopsy report that the fatal five shots hit the victim as he fell to the ground. An argument can be made the Victim was complying with the orders of the Police and thus the Police opening fire was uncalled for. Lets see what the Civil Litigation does in this case before we said these offices avoided all forms of punishment.