Police release body cam footage in fatal shooting
VALLEJO » The city of Vallejo released officer body camera footage Tuesday showing the final moments of a police chase that ended with five Vallejo officers shooting a man 41 times, killing him.
The 42-second clip, obtained through a records request, became publicly releasable after it was played in open court during a coroner’s inquest hearing, according to free speech experts. Before the March hearing, Vallejo police had denied a records request from this news organization asking for footage from the shooting.
The video shows the tailend
of the August 2017 police chase involving 45-yearold Benicia resident Jeffrey Barboa, who police said was wanted in connection with
an armed robbery in El Cerrito. Barboa is seen exiting his car carrying a large knife and slowly walking toward
officers, who have their guns drawn and are yelling commands. The footage ends just before the first shots are fired.
Police identified Officers Stephanie McDonough, Jake Estrada, David McLaughlin, Zach Jacobsen and Matt Komoda as having fired at Barboa. In March, the Contra Costa County coroner held an inquest hearing on Barboa’s death, where a jury ruled 8-4 that Barboa’s death was a suicide.
Two officers testified at the inquest hearing that Barboa was screaming, “Kill me,” as he walked toward police.
“It’s a difficult and tragic event all around,” Vallejo police Capt. Lee Horton said. “We agree with the findings of the coroner’s inquest that it was suicide via gunshot.”
Contra Costa is one of a handful of California counties to conduct coroner’s inquest hearings to review incustody and deaths involving officers. During the hearings, which are held in open court, a jury is asked to choose four manners of death: Suicide, accident, natural causes or at the hands of another, not by accident. The rulings carry no civil nor criminal liability, and the hearings are held to give the public a chance to learn the facts of fatalities where officers are involved.
First Amendment Coalition Executive Director David Snyder said once the body camera footage was played in open court, it “became part of the public record,” and that the police should release it.
“It is necessarily part of the record,” Snyder said. “A police department, at least under the First Amendment, can’t take away the public’s right to access the records once they have already been made public . ... These records are of particular importance because they deal with police use of force, and officers’ very extraordinary power to use deadly force.”
When this news organization asked the sheriff’s office to obtain body camera footage from coroner’s inquest hearing as a court record, a sheriff’s lieutenant declined. He cited a state law that said, “any books, records, documents, or other things under the control of a law enforcement agency” subpoenaed for an inquest hearing “shall not themselves be made a part of the record in any coroner’s inquest without the written consent of the law enforcement agency.”
“The sheriff is following the statute. … They don’t appear to be acting in bad faith here,” Snyder said. “What I’m saying is, the First Amendment makes that non-tenable. Something that is already public can’t be taken out of public view at the discretion of a law enforcement agency, even if the statute says that.”
Days after the Aug. 3 shooting, this news organization filed a public records act request for body camera footage from the incident.