Fatal shooting by CHP officer to be investigated by California AG under new law

California Attorney General Rob Bonta is using a new law to investigate after a California Highway Patrol officer fatally shot a person while responding to a vehicle collision in East Los Angeles on Tuesday afternoon.

A witness said that the man who was shot by police was drunk and that he stumbled while trying to obey police orders and put his hands behind his neck, according to ABC7 News. The witness said a CHP officer used a Taser on the man and as he was reaching at one of the officers he was shot seven times, ABC7 News reported.

The matter was referred to the California Department of Justice’s California Police Shooting Investigation Team for Southern California, which deployed to the scene. Once the investigation is concluded, the matter will be turned over to the department’s Special Prosecutions Section for independent review.

A new law Gov. Gavin Newsom signed last year, Assembly Bill 1506, requires the Department of Justice to investigate all police shootings that result in the death of an unarmed civilian. Previously, those incidents were handled by local law enforcement and county district attorneys.

“AB 1506 provides the California Department of Justice with an important tool to directly help build and maintain trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve by creating a mandate for an independent, statewide prosecutor, moving forward, to investigate and review officer-involved shootings of unarmed civilians across California,” according to Bonta’s office.

If criminal charges are deemed inappropriate for the case, the Department of Justice will release a written report that will communicate a statement of facts as revealed by the investigation, an analysis of those facts, an explanation of why a criminal charge was not appropriate and, where applicable, recommendations to modify policies and practices of the involved law enforcement agency, according to the attorney general’s office.

Bonta has announced several other reviews of fatal shootings under the new law, including reopening an inquiry related to the 12-year-old police shooting of Oscar Grant at the Fruitvale BART station on New Year’s Day in 2009. Grant, a 22-year-old Black man, was fatally shot in the back by Officer Johannes Mehserle, who later was charged with murder and convicted of involuntary manslaughter.

This story was originally published September 29, 2021 at 1:11 PM.