A matter of life or death

(Reader opinion by Will Shonbrun.) His blue eyes and engaging 13-year-old-I’m-hip smile stare back at you. It’s the now too familiar face of young Andy Lopez. Then, juxtaposed on the same newspaper page, illuminated from below by hand-held memorial candles is a photo of intense, expectant and defiant faces of three of his friends, Arlene, Blanca and Sara on the anniversary of Andy’s death. Is this the end of the story or the beginning?

No one in Sonoma County seems to have forgotten the Andy Lopez shooting. And why should they? Lopez was a young boy, committing no crime whatsoever and only guilty of the foolishness of carrying a toy weapon that strongly resembles the real thing, and being stopped by an overzealous officer who shot and killed him in an instance of monumental misjudgment. ‘Monumental’ to his parents, his relatives and friends, his community in general and to all of us in a broader sense.

It reverberates because most of us can relate to this cruel twist of fate. We’ve all done foolish things, and we know our kids have, but it usually doesn’t end up with an irreplaceable loss.

The questions now remain: What can be done to avoid this from happening again? Is that possible? How?

To try and answer these questions it’s necessary to delve into the heart of the matter and that is the decision by the Sheriff’s Deputy to shoot-to-kill in the short time and circumstances leading up to this tragic error.

Law enforcement shoot-to-kill policies in California appear essentially the same and match language constructed from U.S. Supreme Court decisions. “Deadly force” policies allow deputies to shoot-to-kill when defending themselves or others from an “immediate threat of death or serious bodily injury.” This threat is called in law “imminent peril,” which is further explicated as “apparent, clear, and easily understood by a reasonable observer” (California Jury Instructions). Also, and importantly, the deputy must have shot to kill only after exercising “due caution and circumspection” (California Penal Code). Lastly, there is a requirement that a law enforcement official must have had probable cause to believe that the victim posed an imminent peril.

So the paramount question is, were these provisions met by the deputy in the Andy Lopez killing? And as importantly, are these legally required provisions embedded in and being met by the County Sheriff’s Department?

Some groups in the county: among them the Peace and Justice Center of Sonoma County, Sonoma Valley Peace and Justice, the Women’s Justice Center, the (Northern California) American Civil Liberties Union, and an organization seeking justice for Andy Lopez are saying “no” to both questions. The County District Attorney’s office counters by saying that their offices and their designated outside investigator concluded that the legal provisions in this case were met and therefore the deputy who shot Andy Lopez does not have to go to trial.

It is my understanding that both the County Sheriff’s Dept. and the Santa Rosa Police Dept. conducted their own reviews of the case (I’m not sure what that means or entails), but that information is not accessible.

But the fact of the matter is that the public will never know if this finding by the District Attorney’s office is justified or accurate, i.e., the truth of the matter, because it will never go to a public trial. So the questions that might have been asked and addressed in a legal public hearing hang in the air like black balloons at a funeral marking only a death of an innocent boy, with no resolution and no solutions for future shoot-to-kill incidents. And there will surely be more.

What can be done to avoid this from happening again, and how? The Sonoma County American Civil Liberties Union and many others in the county answer this problematic question by saying there is a pressing need, as well as a long history that supports that need, for a Civilian Review Board. It is recommended that such a board be comprised of citizens of the county not affiliated with any polices departments or the District Attorney’s office, who are appointed by impartial entities, perhaps judicial, and who will and can act independent of all outside pressures or influences.

It’s time, ACLU says, the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office, as overseen by the Board of Supervisors, takes a new approach to “community policing” — one in which the community feels respected and protected by law enforcement, not harassed and threatened.