Lawsuit Over Police Shooting in Vallejo Cites "Inadequate" Police Shooting Policy; Six Fatal Police Shootings in 2012

17-year-old begged for police not to shoot, lawsuit alleges

family photo

The father of one of six police shooting victims in Vallejo, California last year is suing the police department for inadequate training policies on the deadly use of force. 17-year-old Jared Huey had allegedly robbed a gas station at gun point and then fled in a stolen Jeep before crashing it and running into a backyard, where he was shot to death by police. The lawsuit claims, via the Times Herald:

Vallejo police announced: "Get the kids out of the park! There's gonna be a shoot-out!" and allegedly shouted taunts including "We'll teach you to do s--- in our town!" and "You think you're slick, little boy?!"

Officers then ordered Huey to raise his hands and stay still. An officer standing on a step stool then looked over the fence before pointing his rifle over. At the same moment, a second officer pointed his gun over the fence.

"At this point, decedent [Huey] had his hands up in the air, and yelled, 'Don't shoot!' 'No! No!' " according to the complaint. The officers then collectively fired their weapons about 10 to 20 times at Huey.

Police said Huey was armed, and that a gun was found near his body after the shooting. The lawsuit, however, alleges that officers spent at least 40 minutes looking for the gun and that it was found in another yard.

The DA is reviewing all six fatal shootings, only one of which, involving a fake handgun, has been ruled justified. The other five, including Huey's case, are still pending. Local civil rights attorney John Burris called for a federal probe of the seven (one non-fatal) police shootings in Vallejo last year, saying it was "a huge number for a city this size." The population of the city is about 116,000. No federal investigation appears forthcoming. Video of the Huey shooting, caught on cellphone by a bystander, here. Fresh out of bankruptcy, last year the city of Vallejo paid out a $4.5 million settlement for a 2007 incident of police brutality that ended with a spinal cord injury for the victim.

Comments

[Kaptious Kristen]

"At this point, decedent [Huey] had his hands up in the air, and yelled, 'Don't shoot!' 'No! No!' " according to the complaint. The officers then collectively fired their weapons about 10 to 20 times at Huey.

If true, these fucking pigs are disgusting. Worse than the Stasi.

[Zakalwe]

That wigger photo fills me with sympathy for the pigs.

[Zeb]

An A's hat makes you a wigger? I don't see much else besides his face in the picture.

[Zakalwe]

The hat, the angle of the hat, the fact he's a white kid ripping off stores at gun point, "Jared aka bootsy" across the bottom of the photo.

[Tricerabottoms]

One photo and you've branded him. Fucking pathetic.

[Zakalwe]

I know! Isn't he? Oops, make that wasn't he, amirite?

As a Texan, whenever someone is killed my first question is "well, did he have it coming?"

This picture introduces reasonable doubt that the answer to that question is no.

[Old Man With Candy]

He's from Vallejo. That makes him automatically suspect. The place is a worse shithole than Detroit.

If you're too scummy to live in Oakland, you go to Richmond. If you're too scummy for Richmond, you go to Vallejo. The only possible step down from there is American Canyon.

[Ska]

I saw a picture of a black dude wearing a Boston t-shirt (the band). What does that make him?

[Zakalwe]

Duh, I'd have to see the picture. Why do racists like you think you can make quick judgments based on a two factor description with no visual context?

[gordonshane1101]

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[scape]

Deaf.

[The Late P Brooks]

Due process is reserved for the nomenklatura.

[kinnath]

When kinnath becomes president, the justice department will have two jobs: getting non-violent marijuana offenders out of federal prison cells and then filling those cells with corrupt cops and prosecutors.

[robc]

Its the Balko friday nut punch!!!

[A Serious Man]

I dislike the use of the family photo here. It's the same prejudicial bullshit the media used for the Zimmerman-Martin shooting. It seems to me like the shooting was at worst unwarranted, but no one seems to dispute that he committed armed robbery and endangered others with reckless driving. I don't feel sorry for him at all even if he should be in prison for a good 10 years rather than six feet under.

[Dweebston]

Nobody disputes the crime committed, just the extremity of the punishment meted out without due process. Particularly when the community ends up paying for their cops' extrajudicial killings.

[Tricerabottoms]

Prejudicial bullshit? They should be passing around a picture of his bullet ridden corpse and a picture of the gun in the other yard.

[Dweebston]

I wonder whether Vallejo follows Detroit's example and hires bonded security firms when their PD bankrupts the city.

Just kidding, California will bail them out should it come to it and taxpayers will enjoy the proceeds.

[Kaptious Kristen]

It's the idea that the cops basically set up a firing squad to execute this dude, without due process that is so goddamn abhorrent. It appears this wasn't a shootout or fog-of-war situation, but a deliberate execution.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Fresh out of bankruptcy, last year the city of Vallejo paid out a $4.5 million settlement for a 2007 incident of police brutality...

Don't cities have to have insurance for these kinds of things? Who would insure this place at this point?

[Dweebston]

I have no idea whether this is true, but since it's connected with a state-run institution I suspect any insurer is probably politically entangled with the state and ultimately backstopped by the taxpayer. It seems too lucrative a possibility for graft not to somehow be politically mediated.

[Brett L]

Would you insure that city for less than 100 cents on the dollar? The idea of insurance is that $X will by lost of Y years, so I'll guarantee your asset for 1.n*X/Y. Where n always greater than zero and usually less than one but greater than a safer bet.

[Brett L]

Wow. Shitty typing is shitty. Formula for profitable insurance is $A=(1+n)*X/Y where A is the annual cost of insurance and other variables are as defined above.

[Zakalwe]

Unless state law mandates it there's no insurance requirement. I assume most government entities self insure like the federal government does, planning to pay anything out of general revenues over a relatively short fiscal timeline. It's not like any feasible individual "accidents" are going to bankrupt them; only day to day policy is going to do that.

[Anders]

What a crappy article. It's like mirror image of what NBC wrote about Zimmerman and St. Trayvon.

Zimmerman: Psychotic gun thug whacks poor innocent Nubian Prince.
Val Cops: Psycho cops form impromptu death squad and execute cute middle class whitey.

Fatal shootings are almost always more complicated than this but by all means feel free to go all NWA and shout F*ck Da Pohleeese!

[Kaptious Kristen]

Okey doke - FUCK THE POLICE!

[Dweebston]

It's not even remotely equivalent. The men involved in this case may someday face a mostly-friendly disciplinary review, but they will never be held accountable to the extent that a private citizen like Zimmerman is. Meanwhile, taxpayers will be shellacked for the cost of litigation and settlements arising from this and the other six cases. We pay police to prevent violence, not to escalate it. They should be held to a higher standard than citizens, not a substantially lower standard.

[Dweebston]

Fail reply is fail. That's meant for Herr Anders, not Fraulein Kristen.

[Anders]

Let's take your post from back to front to spice things up.

There is nothing in this article that gets near proving that these police are held to a lower standard than a citizen. That's an inference you and this article buy into.

The police actually are not paid to prevent violence. Police carry guns first and foremost to protect themselves, they have no contractual obligation to protect you

As for taxpayers being hit, all civil litigation hits taxpayers in one way or another. What you are trying to say as a tangent is that you believe in tort reform.

Cops don't skate on straight up executions - this is not Pakistan.

I can understand the whole fuck da police thing, but this article is ridiculously slanted.

Maybe the kid really was executed in cold blood. Maybe the family is after a pay day - scumbag families often spin the killing of their scumbag spawn to get a big payout.

Either way, this article is BS.

[Zakalwe]

There's a happy medium here where you can acknowledge the cops quite possibly should spend most of their lives in prison and that "bootsy" would be a prime candidate for social hygiene removal in a selectively benevolent dictatorship.

[JoeyRamone]

You are a racist jackass and ignorant to boot.

This kid is far from a "middle class whitey" -- he spent several years in foster care, his father is broke and his mom is mentally ill and not present in his life.

On the other hand, your Zimmerman headline seems pretty accurate to me.

As for the article being one-sided, here's why: The police have not released the police report to the media, wouldn't comment for the story and in other ways can't or won't provide a counterpoint to the lawsuit.

[Zakalwe]

Crap, I just realized why I instinctively want this kid to die. Do a mental left to right swap and compare to this.

[WomSom]

The cops are out of control man!

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