After Police Shoot An Unarmed Man, Justice is Meted Out With $$$

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A financial settlement in the police shooting of an unarmed black man back in 2012 was achieved by the mother from a small town city government in Southern California.

According to The Los Angeles Times story titled: Mother of unarmed Pasadena teen killed by police settles with city, the mother, Anya Slaughter settled her portion of the lawsuit after Pasadena Police Department Officers Matthew Griffin and Jeffrey Newlen shot and killed Kendrec McDade, her oldest son, who was unarmed but posed a threat according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office Justice System Integrity Division report signed by Deputy District Attorney Deborah Delport.

According to the report, the shooting was justified because the officers were in the heat of pursuit, as a result of a 911 call from a man who said that McDade and another person had stolen his laptop and that both were armed. The man, Oscar Carrillo, later admitted he had lied about seeing guns because he thought it would speed up the police response time. Carrillo did jail time last year after pleading guilty to one count of falsely reporting and one count of reporting an emergency knowing the report was false, according to The Los Angeles Times.

Carrillo was charged with making a false report and was charged with a misdemeanor but was never charged with homicide. It was his false reporting that led to the death of McDade, and prosecution uses this tactic to gain a conviction. The Times further reported:

An internal review of the shooting determined that Pasadena Police Officers Matthew Griffin and Jeffrey Newlen, who each shot McDade four times, both acted “within departmental policy.”

According to the Los Angeles Coroner’s report, on page 20, the bullet struck McDade left side and the bullet mushroomed on his pelvis area. So as McDade was turning to his left, possibly to get on the sidewalk, he then was shot.

That first shot was fatal according to the Los Angeles County Coroner’s report. McDade was shot seven to eight times. Interestingly, though the City settled with an undisclosed amount, even though the District Attorney said the shooting was justified. Why settle? Because the shooting of an unarmed black person is justifiable homicide? And waiting handcuffed in the middle of the street bleeding out also justifiable? Was the delay to the hospital according to a reporter from a local Pasadena newspaper, which may have saved McDade, justifiable?

So since the shooting death of McDade is within Pasadena’s policy, does that include the 30 minute delay which may or may not have contributed to McDade’s death? There was another shooting in Pasadena, the Paris Holloway case. According to witnesses, Pasadena Police did the same thing…waited, to take a critical care patient to the hospital.

Again is this within policy? A story by the Pasadena Star News showed that 90 percent of arrests in Pasadena are People of Color. Is that within policy? According to the City of Pasadena stats:

55.8% of Pasadenans are white, 33.0% are Latino, 13.4% are African-American, 12.7% are Asian, 0.5% are American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.0% are Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, and 17.5% are some other race.

One might think that whites would make a larger portion of arrests. Actually whites make less than 10 percent. Is that within policy? If no, then the shooting of McDade then is questionable, because, according to statistics, since there are more white folks, should not then the whites have 42.4 percent of getting shot because there are more white folks?

Apparently, not only is the shooting of McDade justifiable, but leading up to the shooting is also justifiable as well as after the shooting too…like waiting for an ambulance to take you to the hospital. There are a lot more questions that needs answering.

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Tim From LA

Tim's first experience into journalism was at East Los Angeles College. Then Tim was a stringer for a local Japanese American Newspaper in Los Angeles. He then completed his Bachelors in Business and RECEIVED his MBA, but his desire to seek the truth has not been assuaged by fear of the 1% or their followers. When Tim isn't doing his liberal thing, he enjoys sitting back, relaxing and listening to Rush...the band folks!