Jury Rules Pasco Cops Were Justified When They Shot and Killed an Unarmed Mexican Worker Rafi Schwartz - Fusion
go to original December 16, 2016

Police in Pasco, Washington fatally shoot Antonio Zambrano-Montes (Periodico Madera Video Denuncia)

Nearly two years after police in Pasco, Washington, shot and killed unarmed man Antonio Zambrano-Montes, an inquest jury has ruled that their actions were justified. The verdict ends what had become a hotly contested case which animated the local Latinx community.

The December 14 ruling came at the request of Franklin County Coroner Dan Blasdel, who empaneled the six-person jury not to pass criminal judgement on the three officers involved, but rather as a fact-finding inquest to determine exactly how Zambrano-Montes died, and whether the use of lethal force was justified.

Zambrano-Montes’ February 2015 death, which was captured on video by nearby bystanders, prompted massive protests in Pasco, a city of around 70,000 in Washington State. In a letter to Pasco Police chief Robert Metzger, the Mexican consul in Seattle described the shooting as “unwarranted use of lethal force against an unarmed Mexican national.”

Earlier this year, prosecutors declined to press criminal charges against the officers involved in the killing—Adrian Alaniz, Adam Wright, and Ryan Flanagan who has since left the force—saying “the use of lethal force by the officers in this case was reasonable under the standards established in our state laws and that no criminal charges can be filed in this case.”

This week’s inquest was reportedly launched as a response to that decision, in an effort to demonstrate transparency in the investigative process.

Read the rest at Fusion

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