Video of fatal US police shooting of unarmed man released

Press TV | July 15, 2015

A US federal judge has released a video of police fatally shooting an unarmed Hispanic man in a city near Los Angeles, California two years ago amid intense public scrutiny of police shootings across the United States.

Stephen Wilson, a judge on the US District Court for the Central District of California, said on Tuesday that the public should be able to see what led the city of Gardena to pay $4.7 million to settle a lawsuit with the family of Ricardo Diaz-Zeferino and another man wounded in the shooting.

“The fact that they spent the city’s money, presumably derived from taxes, only strengthens the public’s interest in seeing the videos,” Wilson wrote in his 13-page decision. “Moreover, defendants cannot assert a valid compelling interest in sealing the videos to cover up any wrongdoing on their part or to shield themselves from embarrassment.”

Several US media organizations asked the judge to unseal the videos under a First Amendment right to access court documents.

A lawyer representing The Associated Press, the Los Angeles Times and Bloomberg had asserted there is intense public scrutiny of police shootings nationwide.

“We applaud the court’s decision to unseal the video,” AP spokesman Paul Colford said. “The Associated Press, joining with other news organizations, believes it’s important that the public has access to videos like this to better understand the actions of their police officers.”

 

 

Video footage recorded from three police-car cameras shows the shooting death of Zeferino, who was stopped with two of his Latino friends by police investigating a bicycle theft on June 2, 2013.

The stolen bike belonged to Zeferino’s brother and he was trying to find it, but he was shot when he did not obey officers’ commands to stand still with his hands in the air. Zeferino was shot eight times, and Eutiquio Acevedo Mendez was shot once. … Full article