LOS ANGELES — The family of an unarmed man fatally shot by police in suburban Los Angeles called for a federal civil rights investigation Wednesday into the police department involved, saying newly released video of the shooting raises significant questions.
Attorneys for the family of Ricardo Diaz-Zeferino and a second man wounded in the 2013 shooting filed a letter in federal court asking the Justice Department to investigate the Gardena Police Department.
The attorneys wrote that Gardena police routinely violate their own policies and California state law by failing to internally investigate fatal officer-involved shootings, including that of Diaz-Zeferino, 34. They cite 10 other fatal shootings involving Gardena officers since 2009.
Mildred O’Linn, an attorney who represents the department, didn’t immediately return messages seeking comment Wednesday.
Newly released videos of the shooting show Diaz-Zeferino with his palms open at waist level when officers shoot him eight times. A second man who had his hands up, Eutiquio Acevedo-Mendez, survived being shot in the back.
Gardena police fought aggressively to keep the videos under wraps. A federal judge ordered them released Tuesday, after news organizations argued the public had a right to see them.
Judge Stephen V. Wilson said the public had a right to see what led the city of Gardena to pay $4.7 million to settle a lawsuit with Diaz-Zeferino’s family and Acevedo-Mendez in the shooting, which followed a botched report of a bicycle theft early June 2, 2013.
“The fact that they spent the city’s money, presumably derived from taxes, only strengthens the public’s interest in seeing the videos,” Wilson wrote. “Moreover, defendants cannot assert a valid compelling interest in sealing the videos to cover up any wrongdoing on their part or to shield themselves from embarrassment.”
The videos shot from two angles show the last seconds of Diaz-Zeferino’s life as he raises and lowers his hands three times and crumples to the street from a hail of gunfire.
Acevedo-Mendez said that all Diaz-Zeferino was trying to do was tell police that he and his friends didn’t steal any bikes and didn’t have any weapons.
“The police didn’t listen,” Acevedo-Mendez said Wednesday at a news conference outside federal court in Los Angeles. “All they had to do was look. Not one police who fired stopped to search us.”
Diaz-Zeferino’s younger brother, Agustin Reynoso, said his brother was a good man who worked 12 hours a day to support their five siblings and parents back home in Guerrero, Mexico.
“(My parents) lost a son. They’re never going to be the same,” Reynoso said. “I want the Gardena Police Department to be investigated more deeply.”
Reynoso said he was glad video of the shooting will be in the public domain, saying it shows the truth.
The video’s release comes amid public debates over what footage should be made public as police officers and their patrol cars are increasingly equipped with cameras.
Michael Overing, a lawyer and journalism professor at the University of Southern California, said that in addition to being cited in future court arguments, the ruling could help provide guidance as lawmakers grapple with those issues.
“Right now video is being suppressed,” Overing said. “This is going to help open the floodgates so the public can see it … and see if actions are justified.”
Gardena was joined by police chiefs and officer groups around the state in arguing that making such videos public would dissuade cities from employing the technology.
A lawyer for Gardena and its police argued the footage would create a “rush to judgment” about the officers’ behavior, but Wilson dismissed that idea during arguments Monday.
