Stockton police respond after Black Lives Matters accuse them of murder

STOCKTON — The Stockton Police Department this week responded to citizens’ accusations and complaints that black and Latino children are being murdered by its officers.

“A countywide protocol investigation was invoked in both the James Rivera and Colby Friday cases,” Officer Joseph Silva, a spokesman for the department, said Thursday.

“The San Joaquin County District Attorney’s Office found both officers acted reasonably, and their use of force was justified,” he added.

Silva’s comments come after nearly a dozen members of the Stockton Black Lives Matter chapter attended Tuesday’s Stockton City Council meeting, accusing the department of murder and chastising local leaders for not doing anything about it.

Speakers Tuesday night included Dionne Smith-Downs, the mother of Rivera, and Denise Friday, the mother of Colby Friday.

James Rivera Jr. died in July 2010 after he reportedly drove a stolen Chevrolet van into a Bancroft Way triplex during a police pursuit and attempted to run officers over in an escape attempt, according to a 27-page report on the incident released by the San Joaquin County District At- torney’s Office in 2012.

The report stated that although Rivera did not possess a firearm, lethal force was justified because the van itself could have served as a deadly weapon.

Smith-Downs received a $300,000 settlement from San Joaquin County in January for her son’s death, and currently has a federal lawsuit pending in the Eastern District of California court in Sacramento.

Colby Friday died in August 2016 after reportedly running from an officer investigating an unrelated domestic violence case and not obeying commands to leave a weapon on the ground.

Denise Friday filed a federal lawsuit in 2017, and Officer David Wells was cleared of any wrongdoing by the District Attorney’s Office last summer.

During the public comment section of Tuesday’s meeting, the mothers and other residents who have lost loved ones to violence involving law enforcement, accused council members of sitting on the dais and ignoring the fact that “brown and black kids are being killed by police,” as one speaker said.