Tony Saavedra is an investigative reporter specializing in legal affairs for the Orange County Register. Los Angeles County prosecutors declined to file charges against the involved officers, saying there was no evidence of criminal conduct. Sandlin was killed by a shotgun wound to the head but had been shot numerous times in the head and right arm. Michael was shot 13 times and died at the scene. When the two awoke, officers opened fire, saying they believed Michael was reaching for the gun. The officers tried for 40 minutes to wake them up, using sirens and a patrol car to nudge the bumper of the Malibu. Michael and Marquintin Sandlin were fatally shot after police found them passed out in their Chevrolet Malibu parked in traffic lanes. The officers involved in the killing of Kisha Michael have been fired. I’m glad they’re continuing to press forward,” Phillips said. “We support transparency and we’re looking forward to reviewing the records. In his ruling Friday, July 21, Judge Kin wrote that Inglewood “has set forth no valid grounds upon which the petition should be denied.”Ĭheryl Phillips, a partner in the California Reporting Project - which includes the Southern California News Group - credited the ACLU with holding Inglewood accountable. “They just do not want to produce the records.” “Their only defense was they were a small agency” without the resources to hunt down and produce the records, Ochoa said. “They were one of the worst bad actors among the agencies that were unwilling to produce records,” because the department wasn’t truthful and misrepresented its intentions, Ochoa said. Ochoa said Inglewood produced incomplete records while indicating for at least a year that the full records were on their way, forcing the ACLU to obtain a court order last year preventing the department from shredding any more of the documents. The law later was expanded by SB 16 to include failure to intervene against a colleague using excessive force and discrimination based on race, religion and physical or mental disability. The ACLU is seeking police personnel records under Senate Bill 1421, which the state Legislature passed in 2018 to force police agencies to fulfill requests for records involving police shootings, excessive force and sustained dishonesty. “They haven’t complied with the (public records) law, so we’re not sure they’ll comply with the (court) order either,” Ochoa said.Īttorneys for the Inglewood Police Department declined comment. Kin, Melanie Ochoa, director of police practices for ACLU Southern California, said she will keep the pressure on Inglewood. The ruling also applies to a request by the family of Kisha Michael for department records on the five former officers involved in her fatal shooting in 2016.ĭespite the ruling by Judge Curtis A. The Inglewood Police Department must release police misconduct records to the American Civil Liberties Union within 30 days after failing to deliver them for more than four years, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has ruled.
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