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| Attorney John Burris, center, comforts Robert and Deborah Mann, family members of Joseph Mann, who was killed by Sacramento Police in July, after a news conference Monday, Oct. 3, 2016, in Sacramento, Calif. The Mann family is demanding that the officers involved in shooting of Joseph Mann, 50, be charged with murder and that the U.S. Department of Justice open a civil rights investigation of the Sacramento Police Department. |
SACRAMENTO,
Calif. (AP) -- The family of a man killed in July by Sacramento
police after 911 callers reported he was waving a knife and acting
erratically demanded Monday that two officers face murder charges after
dash-cam video revealed they talked inside their police cruiser about
running him down. He dodged the cruiser twice and was shot 14 times less
than a minute later by the same two officers.
The
officers "behaved like big game hunters closing in on an animal," said
John Burris, a lawyer for the family of Joseph Mann, who was mentally
unstable and homeless.
The demand for the
murder charges came as Los Angeles police chief Charlie Beck defended
his officers in the fatal shootings of a black man Saturday who police
say was armed with a loaded semi-automatic gun and a Hispanic man on
Sunday who officers say was wielding replica handgun.
The
latest police shootings happened amid heightened tensions over police
actions involving black people and other minorities across the country,
and followed two more police shootings by California police last week of
black men in San Diego and Pasadena.
In the
Sacramento case, police have said Mann was waving a knife in the air and
doing karate moves in the streets just before police responded. But
Burris told reporters he was not threatening anybody and that the two
officers who shot him, John Tennis and Randy Lozoya, should face a U.S.
Justice Department civil rights investigation in addition to murder
charges.
The officers can be heard on the
recording saying "I'm gonna hit him" and "OK, go for it" before
appearing to drive their cruiser twice at Mann, who managed to scramble
out of its way both times. The officers then stopped the cruiser, got
out of it, pursued him on foot and opened fire.
"Mann
was standing stationary on a sidewalk with no one in close proximity
when the officers unloaded their guns," Burris wrote in a letter he said
he sent U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
Sacramento
police spokesman Matthew McPhail said he could not immediately comment
on whether officers are trained to use squad cars as weapons. He said
the law and police protocol allow any person to use reasonable means to
defend themselves under extreme circumstances.
"Our officers are encouraged to assess each circumstance and think critically about the tools at their disposal," McPhail said.
The Sacramento District Attorney's Office is reviewing the recordings and police reports, spokeswoman Shelly Orio said.
Tennis
and Lozoya were put on a brief leave after the July 11 shooting and
returned to work on desk duty instead of patrol the following week. An
administrative review of their actions is underway.
"It
doesn't service anybody's interest with the public or the city, even
the officers themselves or the family of the deceased, to have any sort
of determination to be made before the investigation is complete,"
McPhail said.
Surveillance videos show Mann
doing the karate moves, zigzagging as he walked around a down-and-out
commercial neighborhood in north Sacramento where many businesses are
shuttered.
Police 911 recordings released
previously included callers who said a man was waving a knife in the
air, had a gun in his waistband and appeared to be mentally ill. Police
found a knife but no gun after Man was killed.
Family
members have described Mann as a college graduate who was smart, loved
politics and economics, and succeeded in several careers before
deteriorating into mental illness about five years ago. They said he had
been living on the streets and struggled with drugs before his death.
Toxicology tests revealed Mann had methamphetamine in his system the day he died, according to Police Chief Sam Somers.
A
special team of officers that can assist other officers in dealing with
mentally ill people was not sent to the area where callers reported
Mann was acting erratically.
The videos
released showed a first police cruiser that arrived alongside Mann as he
was walking down a street. Mann turned away from that vehicle when
another cruiser with the two officers approached him, talking inside
their cruiser about hitting Mann.
When Mann
ran out of the cars way, the officer driving the cruiser backed it up
and turned to aim in Mann's direction again. It accelerated toward Mann,
who ran across a median. The cruiser stopped and the officers got out.
Mann is heard on audio from the video saying he did not have a gun.
About 15 seconds later, 18 shots were fired - 14 hit Mann.
It
was extremely rare for audio to be captured describing what the
officers were thinking as the events leading up to Mann's shooting
unfolded, said Kevin LaHue, a private attorney in Los Angeles who has
worked on numerous federal civil rights cases involving police tactics.
"Having
this sort of real-time insight into the thought process of the officers
and their use of force, I think that is very unique," LaHue said.
