From [HERE] Luis Góngora, the Latino homeless man shot by San Francisco police on 7 April, was killed by a shot to the head from above, lawyers for his family alleged at a press conference as they announced the filing of a claim against the city and county of San Francisco for excessive force and wrongful death.
“This was like a mafia shot,” said Luis Poot Pat, Góngora’s cousin, who attended the press conference on Friday. “I can’t believe in the beautiful city of San Francisco this can happen.”
Attorneys for the Góngora family presented video and photographic evidence that they say shows that police officers shot Góngora from above, while he was either sitting down or lying prone. Photographs from a private autopsy show that Góngora was shot in the top of his head, as well as in the back, both arms, and the abdomen.
“The officer can be seen shooting down at the wounded man, with a handgun in one hand and a shotgun in the other, in a scene reminiscent of a gangster movie,” the claim states. The claim is a precursor to a lawsuit.
The lawyers played an enlarged, slow-motion version of surveillance video, previously released by the San Francisco Chronicle, that provides a partial view of the shooting. One of the officers can be seen firing three rounds.
“If you slow down this clip, you will witness that the officer who initially had the shotgun is pointing downward,” said Adante Pointer, one of the attorneys. “Mr Góngora was already down on the ground when this officer decided to pump three shots into his body.”
Racist suspects, Sgt. Nate Steger and Officer Michael Mellone were identified as the killer cops.
Pointer also told the Guardian that the absence of stippling or tattooing on Góngora’s body shows that police were more than arms-length away from Góngora when they shot him.
“They shot him to pieces,” Pointer said. “It’s ridiculous.”
“Based on multiple eyewitness accounts that are part of our preliminary investigation, Luis Góngora lunged at one of our officers with a large knife,” said Matt Dorsey, spokesman for the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office. “Gongora posed an immediate and deadly threat, and our officers’ use of lethal force was necessary and legally justified.”
Cmdr. Greg McEachern, white police chief in top photo, said one witness told investigators that “he saw the suspect sitting prior to the shooting, (then) saw the suspect stand up and lunge at the officers.” A second witness said Gongora “rose up with a knife in hand and ran toward the officers,” McEachern said, adding that a third witness echoed that statement. McEachern said a witness who told reporters Gongora spoke only Spanish had, in fact, told police the two had a conversation in English.
Two white San Francisco police officers fired four beanbags and then seven bullets at him within 30 seconds of stepping out of their patrol vehicles, video footage of the incident shows. The surveillance video provides a clear picture of some aspects of the encounter but does not show what 45-year-old Luis Gongora — was doing at the moment police opened fire. Gongora was just outside the camera’s frame.
On the radio run one of the cops who shot him explains that bean bags were used while Gongora was sitting down. The officer says Gongora got up after he was shot by the bean bags and then charged at them with the knife. Then they shot him to death.
The incident began when city homeless outreach workers — who had responded to a report of a disturbance in a homeless encampment — called 911 to say a man was waving a large kitchen knife. Officers arrived minutes later.
The footage obtained by The Chronicle, taken by a camera on the side of a building, shows three marked patrol cars pulling slowly up to the 400 block of Shotwell Street between 18th and 19th streets and parking in the middle of the roadway. Three officers, all of them men, emerge from the police cruisers. The driver of the car in front gets out with a beanbag shotgun and walks to his left to the sidewalk.
Within 10 seconds of getting out of his car, the officer points the gun at someone out of the frame and shouts, “Get on the ground! Stay on the ground!” The officer is moving forward, and a second officer joins him at his side. A few seconds later the officer with the beanbag gun again shouts, “Get on the ground.”
Moments later, both officers appear to shout at the man, commanding, “Put that down” and “Put it down.” The officers continue to advance and move out of the frame. Two more seconds pass before the first beanbag blast, which is followed by three more in short succession. The officer with the weapon can be heard pumping it to ready it for the next shot. The officers can be heard shouting more orders at the man.
Moments later — within 30 seconds after the first officer got out of his car — a burst of seven gunshots is heard. The two officers are still out of frame when the gunshots begin, but then can be seen retreating back into the frame as they fire the final shots.
A third officer is then heard reporting “Shots fired” over his radio as witnesses on the street cry out in shock and a woman on the opposite sidewalk bursts into a sprint away from the scene. [MORE] and [MORE]
Witnesses at the scene have contradicted the police account. They said Gongora spoke only Spanish, never challenged officers and probably didn’t understand what they were saying before he was shot. The witnesses said there was no one else near Gongora when the officers approached him.
“He didn’t charge the officers,” said John Visor, 33, who was living in a tent on Shotwell Street and said he was roughly 10 feet from Gongora when police arrived. “He was going in circles. He didn’t understand what they were saying. They just shot him. They just shot him.”
‘Get on the ground!’
Visor said Gongora carried a knife for safety, but that he didn’t have it out when police arrived.
Góngora’s brother and two cousins were present, and his wife, parents, and three children joined the San Francisco press conference via a video call from their home in Teabo, Mexico.
“The measure of a society is how they treat the least among us,” said John Burris, a prominent civil rights attorney whose firm is representing Góngora’s family.
“Luis was treated as if he was the least among us. He was homeless, and the manner in which he was approached and ultimately attacked clearly indicated there was a lack of regard for him as a human being.”
“Today begins our struggle for justice against the unjustified homicide of our son, our father, and our husband,” said Rosana Góngora May, one of Góngora’s daughters, by video phone and through an interpreter.