Evidence was destroyed in connection with a fatal shooting involving an officer in June that sparked protests for increased police responsibility in Vallejo, California, the city confirmed Wednesday.
Evidence included the bullet-riddled windshield of the unmarked police truck from which the fatal shots were fired.
As a result, an unidentified city employee was placed on administrative leave and the city said it would request that the destruction of the windshield be part of any criminal investigation into the shooting.
The city has also hired an outside investigator to investigate the destruction of evidence and is in contact with the FBI as it requests an outside agency to investigate the larger case.
The city also said in a statement that the police truck had been “put back into service without prior consultation with the Chief of Police or the City Attorney’s Office.”
Melissa Nold, an attorney for the family of the man who was killed, Sean Monterrosa, 22, of San Francisco, said she had wanted to examine the windshield as part of the evidence from a criminal investigation and civil lawsuit, but was surprised to learn from the city attorney’s office this week that had not been preserved.
“I was outraged when I asked about the truck and found that critical evidence was destroyed,” said Nold. “This is the perfect example of why police departments should be prohibited from investigating themselves.”
The body camera video of the scene outside a Walgreens in Vallejo released last week shows an officer in the back seat of the truck shooting through the front windshield. However, the video did not show the moments prior to the shooting or the Monterrosa coup; Images that his family’s lawyers say could help clarify whether he appeared to be threatening officers, as they have claimed, or whether he was crouched in surrender.
Nold said checking the windshield was necessary for an accurate re-creation of the scene and to help determine the trajectory of the bullets, especially since the body camera video doesn’t show Monterrosa until he was already lying on the ground.
Gregory Hagopian, former prosecutor with the Tulare County District Attorney’s Office in California and now a defense attorney, said it is always best to preserve as much physical evidence as possible, allowing all parties to properly build their case and can be better than trusting Photos or memory.
“When you have a case like this where they should know that there is going to be an investigation and there will be controversy, they should have thought we want to be as high up as possible,” Hagopian said. “When the police seem to be hiding things, when they act in the shade, it only worsens the negative perception of the police.”
Vallejo police said officers were responding to a looting report after midnight when they encountered Monterrosa in the parking lot.
There was an earlier incident at the scene in which a police car was rammed and officers described seeing “potential looters” enter the cars and flee, authorities said. When the other officers arrived, Monterrosa started running toward a car, then stopped and knelt in front of them, according to the officers’ accounts.
One of the officers told investigators that he believed Monterrosa had a pistol in his sweatshirt pocket and was kneeling “as if preparing to shoot,” moving his hands toward the jacket in the oncoming vehicle.
That officer fired his gun five times through the windshield, hitting Monterrosa, according to authorities.
Police discovered that the object inside Monterrosa’s pocket was not a weapon, but a long hammer.
The Vallejo Police Department has not identified the officer who fired his weapon.
At a press conference last week, Police Chief Shawny Williams called the incident “tragic,” but said it would be “inappropriate” to comment on the officer’s decision to shoot from the back seat of a vehicle and through the windshield.
Monterrosa’s death was the eighteenth fatal shooting involved by police in Vallejo since 2010, and the majority of those killed were black and brown men, according to records. Monterrosa was Latino.
While the California Department of Justice announced last month that it will undertake an “expansive review” of the Vallejo Police Department due to its history of police complaints, Attorney General Xavier Becerra has refused to independently investigate the Monterrosa shooting , leaving it to the Solano County District Attorney’s Office to determine if the charges are warranted.
Community activists called for an independent investigation led by an agency outside of Solano County. Earlier this month, District Attorney Krishna Abrams announced that she would withdraw her office from the case and said, “I, too, am listening and listening to your pleas for an independent investigation.”
Abrams’ office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday about leading an investigation or the destruction of evidence, while the state Justice Department did not comment.
Nold said one of the two agencies will have to investigate Monterrosa’s death and, as of now, “the Monterrosa family has been stolen, not only from Sean, but from an independent investigation.”
