The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department acknowledged Tuesday that a deputy shot and killed a black man who was mistakenly identified as a suspect in a carjacking, again bringing into question the appropriateness of a police agency’s use of deadly force.
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Sheriff’s homicide Capt. Steven Katz said deputies tried non-lethal force against Thompson, who was as lying with his left hand under his head near what police feared could be a gun. The father of an unarmed black man fatally shot by a deputy with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has filed a civil rights claim.
CORRECTS ID FROM DWAYNE HILL TO JOSEPH GAY AND ADDS RELATIONSHIP OF BROWN TO THOMPSON- Matrice Stanley, center, sister of Donnell Thompson, who was fatally shot by Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies in Compton, Calif., her son an. “There was concern that he may be armed, and may be connected to the carjacking suspect who had fired on deputies”.
On Tuesday, Aug. 9, the sheriff’s office released a statement admitting to their wrongdoing.
“We have determined that there is no evidence that Mr. Thompson was in the carjacked vehicle, nor that he was involved in the assault on the deputies”, the department said in the statement. A flashbang was deployed, but had no effect, according to Katz, who said the tactical officers then fired three rubber bullets at Thompson.
The officer involved has been placed on desk duty.
The chain of events leading to the fatal shooting began early on the morning of July 28, when Compton Station deputies patrolling on Alameda Street stopped a motorist for a traffic violation.
“This was contemporaneous to the final stages of the search for and arrest of the carjacking suspect in the same neighborhood”, the department said.
The admittance came hours before Thompson’s family called for the Los Angeles County supervisors to hold them accountable. No criminal record. And no idea what was going on when deputies found him laying in a yard at 5 a.m. and began attacking him flash grenades and rubber bullets, thinking he was the same suspect who had eluded them two-and-a-half hours earlier during a traffic stop of a stolen auto. The man, 51-year-old William Bowers, was shot after fleeing from deputies on a bicycle in Castaic in northern Los Angeles County. After running the plates, the deputies discovered the vehicle was stolen earlier that night in South Los Angeles.
Different scenarios, same result and, experts say, likely the same outcome once the investigations are completed – police were legally justified to open fire because they had reason to believe the suspects could harm them or others.
Stanley, Thompson’s sister, said she believes her brother didn’t respond to deputies because he was afraid and didn’t know what to do.
Katz refused to call the shooting a mistake but admitted:’Knowing what we know now, do we wish it hadn’t happened?’ he said. A search ensued, and that suspect was taken into custody.
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The department said an administrative review of the case was continuing and when it’s completed will be turned over to the district attorney for review.
