Civil Rights Lawsuit Underway Against San Diego County Deputies who Shot Unarmed Latino Man Nine Times in the Back

From [HERE] and [MORE] Federal civil suits brought by the widow and the daughter of a parolee who was fatally shot by sheriff's deputies in a Vista mobile-home park in 2006 landed in the hands of a jury Wednesday afternoon.

David Arnulfo Lopez, 27. San Diego County sheriff's deputies shot him 12 times, including nine shots to his back. Lopez was unarmed.

An attorney for Lopez's family has said the deputies used excessive force. And the trajectory of the shots and the placement of Lopez's body, according to the attorney, indicate Lopez was fleeing ---- not fighting ---- when the shots were fired.

The attorney for the three accused deputies argues that his clients reasonably believed Lopez was armed and that they were in danger. During a scuffle on the small raised porch of a mobile home, the shirtless Lopez reached for his waistband ---- raising the deputies' fears he was reaching for a weapon, the deputies said.

But attorney David Landry, who represents Lopez's widow, said the evidence, as well as the original statement of one of the three deputies, shows that Lopez had leaped onto the roof of a nearby shed in an attempt to flee when the three men fired at him.

The deputies, he said, range in height between 5 feet 11 inches and 6 feet tall. Lopez was 5 feet 6 inches tall. The men testified that they were standing when they shot Lopez, Landry argued, but the trajectory of the bullets clearly shows he was shot from below.

Through a guardian, the young daughter of Lopez has sued the three deputies who shot him, citing claims of excessive force, negligence and battery. Her attorneys asked the jury to award her $150,000 for the loss of her father.

The attorney of Lopez's widow, who is not the mother of Lopez's child and has filed a separate complaint, asked that the jury find the deputies used excessive force and award her $50,000 for their alleged wrongdoing.

The lawsuits, both filed in 2008, originally also targeted San Diego County and the city of Vista. However, both entities were dismissed from the suit last year.

All that remains are charges against the three deputies ---- Shawn Aitken, Jacob Pavlenko and Jonathan Fecteau ---- who responded after Lopez's wife placed a 911 call to report that he had beaten her. At the time, she had a restraining order against him.

For Vista, the October 2006 shooting served as a reminder of the summer of 2005 when three Latino men were fatally shot by sheriff's deputies in separate incidents over five days. The spate of shootings angered many in the Latino community ---- the population in Vista was about 42 percent Latino at the time ---- and sparked protests and allegations of racism in the Sheriff's Department. The district attorney's office later determined the shootings were legally justified.

Aitken, one of the deputies who shot and killed Lopez, was also involved in one of the shootings in 2005. In that incident, Aitken shot and killed Sergio Garcia Vasquez in July 2005, after Vasquez attacked another deputy during a confrontation at a home in Vista's Townsite area.