On Sunday March 13th, 2022 at around 6:05 PM, deputies from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD) fatally shot a Hispanic man in Palmdale, CA. They do not say that he was armed. According to an updated press release from the department, deputies from Palmdale station were following up on a domestic violence call that they had received earlier in the day. Upon arriving late to the scene, deputies say they tried to contact a random Hispanic male who was in the driver’s seat of a vehicle. Deputies did not clarify why they honed in on this man, but the press release’s wording suggests that they profiled him and assumed he might be the individual responsible for the alleged domestic violence incident. The man in the vehicle attempted to flee, but deputies would not allow him to.
Again, it’s unclear why this man wasn’t allowed to leave. The press release does not specify anything that could have indicated that he was involved in a crime. The man attempted to exit in the vehicle but, according to the department, the vehicle the man was driving hit two patrol cars. It was at this moment that LASD decided to shoot and kill the man. It’s unclear how many deputies fired or how many rounds were fired. Only after he was killed did the department clarify that the victim of the deputy shooting had nothing to do with the alleged domestic violence call. Deputy Tracy Koerner of the Sheriff’s Information Bureau said, “it was later determined the suspect was not involved in the early domestic violence call.”
Deputies say they attempted to render aid until the Los Angeles Fire Department arrived and took over, but the man was pronounced dead at the scene.
There has already been an outcry over this shooting following the revelation that the individual killed was not even involved in the alleged domestic violence incident. San Francisco Police Commissioner John Hamasaki posted on Twitter saying that the increasing calls to “fund the police, unleash the police” from politicians has resulted in “skyrocketing police violence and killings.”
Local civil rights activists from the People’s City Council also decried the shooting, noting that this is the fifth person killed by LASD this year and their eighth shooting this year. Since 2017, shootings by LASD have been on the rise. 2021 was the peak; with 24 shootings resulting in injury or death and 11 non-hit shootings.
There are concerns over transparency and accountability as well. The Sheriff’s Information Bureau suspended their media inquiry email service prior to the shooting. We were unable to get ahold of the public information officers with our questions regarding this shooting. In previous instances of deputy shootings, this service was very responsive when it came to media inquiries. Now: inquiries must be made through the LASD website. We tried to do this but had no response from LASD or even a receipt confirming that inquiries had ever been received.
After calling LASD’s media relations, the Sheriff’s Information Bureau stated that the only information that they could provide was already in the press release. They would not answer specific questions. In the coming weeks, we will hopefully hear more details about this fatal shooting and see if there is body worn camera video footage of the incident.