Video After The Jump
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A sheriff’s deputy in the San Francisco Bay Area has been charged with manslaughter & assault in the fatal shooting of an unarmed Filipino man during a slow-moving car chase more than two years ago.
Last month, the same deputy shot & killed a Black man.
The Contra Costa County district attorney’s office said it charged Deputy Andrew Hall with felony voluntary manslaughter & felony assault with a semi-automatic firearm in the 2018 killing of 33-year-old Laudemar Arboleda, who was shot 9 times.
“Officer Hall used unreasonable & 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.
Deputies slowly pursued Arboleda through the city of Danville after someone reported a suspicious person. Sheriff’s department video shows Hall stopping his patrol car, getting out & running toward the sedan driven by Arboleda. Hall opened fire & kept shooting as Arboleda’s car passed by, striking him 9 times.
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 & overtly political.”
The district attorney has faced criticism for taking so long to make a decision in the 2 1/2-year-old case, which intensified after Hall shot & killed Tyrell Wilson on March 11.
Wilson was carrying a knife in the middle of an intersection. Graphic body camera footage released Wednesday shows the deputy call out to Tyrell Wilson, 33, accusing him of jaywalking & then shoot him in the middle of a busy intersection within seconds of asking him to drop his knife.
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