LOS ANGELES — A Southern California police officer gave a man less than a second to raise his hands before opening fire and killing him, a federal appeals court noted Friday in rejecting the officer’s request to dismiss a wrongful death lawsuit against him.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said Tustin police Officer Osvaldo Villareal couldn’t reasonably have feared for his safety when he shot 31-year-old Benny Herrera after responding to a domestic dispute call in December 2011. That determination ran counter to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office, which said in 2013 that the shooting was reasonable and justified, because Villareal fired after Herrera ignored orders to show his hands.
A video captured by a police dashboard camera shows otherwise, according to the 9th Circuit judges who cited the footage.
“Less than a second elapsed between Villarreal commanding Herrera to take his hand from his pocket and Villarreal shooting him,” the court wrote. “Just as Herrera’s hand came out of his pocket, Villarreal fired two shots in rapid succession. … The command and the shots were almost simultaneous.”
