No Reason to Charge Cops: Fatal Vista shootings of Four Unarmed Latino Men by San Diego Deputies Justified, state report says

By Greg Moran
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

Four fatal shootings by San Diego Sheriff's deputies in Vista in 2005 were legally justified, the state Attorney General's Office said Monday in a report that backed up conclusions reached earlier by local prosecutors.

The report concluded that District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis did not abuse her discretion when she determined that the shootings of four Latino men were lawful. The shootings occurred between March and August 2005, and none of the deputies involved were prosecuted.

In February, a coalition of Latino groups and civil rights groups asked the attorney general to examine a review by Dumanis of the shootings.

The groups contended that county prosecutors, who review all officer-involved shootings, were not independent enough from local law enforcement to give an unbiased look at the incidents.

But, after spending two months reviewing the district attorney's work, state officials came to the same conclusion.

“We found all the shootings justified,” said Gary Schons, the senior assistant attorney general for the San Diego region. “If any of these cases had been presented to us first, we would have not have issued (charges) in any of them.”

The Attorney General's Office did not conduct an independent review of the shootings. Instead, it examined how Dumanis' office analyzed each case and determined whether her conclusions were warranted.

The cases under review include those of three Latino men who were shot in one five-day period in Vista in 2005. Those shootings caused an outcry in the city, which has a large Latino population.

The state reviewers would have to have found that Dumanis had abused her discretion – a high legal bar that made the review problematic, said Kevin Keenan, the executive director of the ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties.

“It's good to have another set of eyes looking at these, but the standard of review is just too high to make them useful,” he said.

Bill Flores of El Grupo, a Latino organization that joined with the Coalition for Justice in pushing for the review, agreed.

“This was kind of an expected result because we all knew that the area of discretion enjoyed by the DA is rather wide, and to find abuse under that is rare,” he said.

The results of the review will now be forwarded to the Attorney General's Civil Rights division, Schons said. Keenan said that review would be broader and could get at larger issues.

“We expect that review would look at questions of bias, and issues of procedures and policy in the sheriff's department and the District Attorney's Office,” Keenan said.

In each of the cases reviewed, Schons' office found that the deputies were justified in shooting because they had acted in self-defense or in the defense of others.

One man was shot while being chased by deputies. He reached for what they thought was a gun, but it was later determined to be a Leatherman-type tool.

Another man was shot during the investigation of a domestic disturbance call when he swung 10-pound dumbbells at deputies. A third was shot after pointing a loaded revolver at deputies. A fourth man was shot after crashing his car into the Vista jail and then attacking deputies.

A fifth case – involving a man who was suspected in an armed robbery and was shot after he reached into his waistband while fleeing deputies – is still under review, Schons said, and results will be announced later.

Dumanis issued a brief statement acknowledging that the state review agreed with her department's findings.

Flores said it was beneficial to residents outraged over the shootings that Schons' office agreed to review the cases. He said many residents still lacked confidence in the impartiality of the shooting reviews by the District Attorney's Office. [MORE]