Civil rights lawyers and attorney slam police killing of East Bay teenager

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WARNING: THE VIDEO CONTAINS GRAPHIC CONTENT

NEWARK Sevgi Fernandez’s gut turned as police body camera footage unfolded.

Fernandez, founder of the Bay Area police accountability nonprofit Together We Stand, saw officers confront Elmer Lopez-Castaneda, a 19-year-old Newark resident, during a traffic stop here on a stolen car this spring.

Footage shows officers opening fire on the teenager after police say he ignored officers’ orders and grabbed from his belt what they thought was a gun but was actually a replica an airsoft gun.

Newark police say 19-year-old Elmer Lopez Castaneda hit this replica, which fires pellets but looks like a real gun. (Credit: Newark PD)

For Fernandez, the footage, which was released in May by the Fremont Police Department, does not clearly show whether Lopez-Castaneda grabbed the airsoft gun.

What is clear is that he was not targeting anyone when they riddled him with bullets, Fernandez said, noting that Lopez-Castanedas’ back was to the officers as he was shot. She added, They murdered him unnecessarily.

Fernandez, whose organization was formed after the 2014 police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and which advocates for victims of police brutality and racism, joins civil rights lawyers questioning officers’ actions in the April 13 shooting of Lopez-Castaneda, who police described as a carjacking suspect in a case where a car was stolen at knifepoint earlier in the year.

James Cook, an attorney at the high-profile law firms of John L. Burris in Oakland, and Mark Merin, a Sacramento-based attorney who regularly handles cases of alleged police misconduct, reviewed the camera footage body of the incident. months at the request of Bay Area newsgroups.

They say Lopez-Castaneda received perhaps confusing orders from officers and was not an immediate threat before he was shot.

One of the things I would say if I was chasing them is, Hey, they all started shouting orders at the same time. He’s getting mixed messages,’ Cook said, adding: The guy just wasn’t lucky.

Merin called the shooting indefensible because Lopez-Castaneda did not point a deadly or non-lethal weapon at officers or anyone else.

It’s a bad move, he said, adding: “The law says that unless he threatens an officer with grievous bodily harm or someone else, he has no right to use lethal force.

Neither Cook nor Merin represented members of the Lopez-Castanedas family in a civil action. It is also difficult to know if a dispute is in progress. The city of Newark said last month it had not received a wrongful death or other claim. In response to a public records request, the city of Fremont said it could not locate a claim related to the shooting. Filing such claims may signal an upcoming lawsuit.

Those close to Lopez-Castanedas could not be reached for comment.

The shooting is one of the latest to be investigated by the California Department of Justice under AB 1506, a police reform bill that took effect in 2021 and requires the state attorney general’s office to review potential criminal liability for all police shootings that result in the death of an unarmed civilian in California.

So far, Attorney General Rob Bontas’ office has conducted reviews in three cases, finding insufficient evidence to pursue criminal charges against officers in each of them. Another 40 such cases are currently under investigation, including cases in Antioch and San Francisco.

The attorney general’s office declined to comment on the Newark case, saying it was unable to provide further information about an ongoing investigation.

The officers involved have previously been identified as Trevor Damewood of the Newark Police Department; and Anthony Piol, Jesse Hartman and Thomas Degenstein of the Fremont Police Department.

In an emailed statement, Newark Police Chief Gina Anderson said she was confident the DOJ would conduct a fair and impartial investigation and that I looked forward to the resolution.

Anderson said it would be inappropriate to comment on the ongoing investigation. But she said all Newark police officers undergo extensive training, which includes tactical communication, de-escalation techniques, scenario-based training and crisis response training, among other essential skills training. .

The Fremont Police Department declined interview requests, referring questions to the attorney general’s office.

Footage released by the Fremont Police Department shows the events leading up to the fatal Lopez-Castaneda shooting, beginning with a knife-point carjacking that was captured on surveillance camera on the 14th February in Newark and ending with Newark and Fremont police officers conducting a high-risk traffic stop on the stolen car April 13 at the Chase Suite Hotel Newark-Fremont on Cedar Boulevard.

Several officers surrounded the car with guns drawn and began shouting orders to Lopez-Castaneda, who was sitting in the driver’s seat, and his passenger, who police described as an associate but remains unnamed.

An officer can be heard in the video asking fellow officers to hold on and ordering a single officer to take control of the controls, which Cook, the Bay Area civil rights attorney, noted as a significant moment.

We have an officer saying, ‘Hey everyone, please shut up,’ Cook said. Because it’s dangerous when several people are shouting commands.

Lopez-Castaneda appears to be complying with orders to get out of the stolen car with his hands on his head. As he begins to turn his back on the officers as instructed, an officer shouts Gun! Gun! after police say the officer spotted what he perceived to be a gun in the teenager’s belt, which was sagging low.

The officer orders Lopez-Castaneda to drop to the ground, now, and other officers can also be heard shouting as the teenager, with his back partially turned to the officers, moves his left arm to his belt, where police say he was carrying a full-metal airsoft gun resembling a Beretta M9 handgun.

Several officers fired their service weapons as the teenager reached his waist. Several officers also fired less lethal gear, including 40mm rounds and pepper balls.

Lopez-Castaneda died at the scene. The airsoft gun flew off the hood of the stolen car next to him before landing near his body.

About 3 seconds have passed since an officer shouted Gun! until the police opened fire.

Cook said the footage raises questions about officers’ use of de-escalation techniques, which he says are part of the courses conducted by the California Commission on Standards and Training for Peace Officers, or POST.

Fernandez, the founder of the nonprofit police accountability organization, said her organization works with families in the Bay Area and across the country, helping them find lawyers for consultation, navigate in police reports and body camera video requests and to connect with mental health resources.

Fernandez said she intended to contact the Lopez-Castanedas family to offer support.

Our taxpayers, she said, are paying for our children to be killed by vigilante police officers who are unaware of their training or have not received the proper training to handle these situations.

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