California Deputy Shoots Black Man Within A Minute

THEY KILL BECAUSE THEY CAN GET AWAY WITH IT, NOT BECAUSE IT IS RIGHT OR EVEN NECESSARY.

A white sheriff’s deputy in the San Francisco Bay Area shot and killed a Black man in the mid­dle of a busy inter­sec­tion about a minute after try­ing to stop him on sus­pi­cion of throw­ing rocks at cars last month, the new­ly released video showed.
Graphic body cam­era footage show­ing Deputy Andrew Hall shoot­ing Tyrell Wilson, 33, with­in sec­onds of ask­ing him to drop a knife was released Wednesday, the same day pros­e­cu­tors charged Hall with manslaugh­ter and assault in the fatal shoot­ing of an unarmed Filipino man more than two years ago. The charges came a day after for­mer Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin was con­vict­ed of killing George Floyd, a Black man whose death last May helped spark a nation­al reck­on­ing over racial injus­tice and police brutality.
The new video in California shows Hall call­ing out to Wilson and walk­ing toward him on March 11 as Wilson walked away. Wilson even­tu­al­ly turns to face the deputy, hold­ing a knife, and says, “Touch me and see what’s up.”
As they stand in the inter­sec­tion, Hall asks him three times to drop the knife as Wilson motions toward his face, say­ing, “Kill me.” Hall shoots once, and Wilson drops to the ground as dri­vers watch and record video.

The entire con­fronta­tion last­ed about a minute. An attor­ney for Wilson’s fam­i­ly released anoth­er video Thursday tak­en by some­one who stopped at the inter­sec­tion. “It doesn’t seem like he was doing any­thing,” some­one says. After Hall shoots Wilson, which can be clear­ly seen in the video, anoth­er per­son says, “Oh, my God. … This dude just got shot and killed, bro.” Attorney John Burris said Hall was unnec­es­sar­i­ly aggres­sive toward Wilson, who was not caus­ing any prob­lems and was back­ing away from the deputy before he was shot with­out warn­ing. “This is a home­less man, he’s walk­ing away, mind­ing his own busi­ness. He’s basi­cal­ly say­ing go away, leave me alone,” Burris said. “You felt com­pelled to kill him.” Contra Costa County Sheriff David Livingston said the videos show Wilson was threat­en­ing Hall and was pos­si­bly throw­ing rocks at dri­vers. “He did threat­en Officer Hall,” Livingston said. “And he did start advanc­ing toward Officer Hall in the mid­dle of a major inter­sec­tion. Officers are forced to make split-sec­ond deci­sions to pro­tect them­selves and the pub­lic, and that’s what hap­pened here.” Hall worked for the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office, which was con­tract­ed by the city of Danville to pro­vide polic­ing ser­vices. Prosecutors have faced inten­si­fy­ing out­cry after Wilson’s death, with crit­ics say­ing they took too long to make a deci­sion in the 2018 killing that Hall car­ried out. The deputy shot 33-year-old Laudemar Arboleda nine times dur­ing a slow-mov­ing car chase.

Burris, who also is rep­re­sent­ing Arboleda’s fam­i­ly, said that if pros­e­cu­tors had act­ed more quick­ly in the Arboleda case, Wilson might still be alive. Burris said both men were men­tal­ly ill. The Contra Costa County dis­trict attorney’s office said it charged Hall with felony vol­un­tary manslaugh­ter and felony assault with a semi-auto­mat­ic firearm in Arboleda’s death. “Officer Hall used unrea­son­able and unnec­es­sary force when he respond­ed to the in-progress traf­fic pur­suit involv­ing Laudemer Arboleda, endan­ger­ing not only Mr. Arboleda’s life but the lives of his fel­low offi­cers and cit­i­zens in the imme­di­ate area,” District Attorney Diana Becton said in a news release.
Hall’s attor­ney, Harry Stern, said pros­e­cu­tors pre­vi­ous­ly deemed the deputy’s use of force in the 2018 case jus­ti­fied, “giv­en the fact that he was defend­ing him­self from a lethal threat. The tim­ing of their sud­den rever­sal in decid­ing to file charges seems sus­pect and overt­ly polit­i­cal.” Deputies slow­ly pur­sued Arboleda through the city of Danville after some­one report­ed a sus­pi­cious per­son in November 2018. The sheriff’s depart­ment video shows Hall stop­ping his patrol car, get­ting out, and run­ning toward the sedan dri­ven by Arboleda. Hall opened fire and kept shoot­ing as Arboleda’s car passed by, strik­ing him nine times. Hall tes­ti­fied at an inquest that he was afraid Arboleda would run him over. The dis­trict attorney’s office says Wilson’s shoot­ing is being investigated.