Court: Officers’ actions justified
McCoy was shot over 50 times in 2019 at Taco Bell drive-thru
Special prosecutor Michael Ramos concluded in a report sent out Thursday afternoon that Vallejo police officers’ actions in a 2019 incident — in which Willie McCoy was shot at more than 50 times in a Taco Bell drive-thru — were legally justified.
McCoy was shot at least 51 times by six Vallejo officers outside of a Taco Bell drive-thru on Admiral Callaghan Lane on Feb. 9, 2019. Police were called to the scene because McCoy was unresponsive and appeared asleep
with a gun in his lap. When he leaned forward, the officers opened fire, striking him more than 20 times in his car.
Ramos was the San Bernardino County District Attorney (DA) from 2002-18, and took over as special prosecutor after Solano DA Krishna Abrams recused herself from investigating the shooting, citing a lack of public trust.
“I have reviewed all of the reports submitted, including audio and videotapes as well as the use of force experts report,” Ramos says in the report. “In addition, I reviewed case law and cited reports in California. Lastly, I reviewed numerous officerinvolved shootings reports that were investigated during my 16 years in office as District Attorney of San Bernadino County. After applying the facts to the law in the State of California, I have concluded the officers’ conduct in this matter were legally justified.”
Ramos goes on to say that the shooting was investigated by the Vallejo Police Department and the Solano County District Attorney’s Investigation Department. The summary of the report is based on a review of all the investigative reports, photographs and audio and video recordings, including the officers’ body-worn cameras submitted by the VPD, DR#19-1676. Ramos also says he used the use-of-force expert submitted by Blake Consulting Firm.
Although McCoy’s lawyer, civil rights attorney Melissa Nold, said she wasn’t surprised at the outcome, later that night after reading the report she told the Times-Herald she was “outraged.” She also said the family of McCoy “thinks the District Attorney (Abrams) should resign due to her demonstrated bias and proven failure to charge officers who commit crimes.”
Nold also gave her opinion on the report by Ramos.
“The person who wrote the report (David Blake) is a retired police officer that the former city attorney (Ramos) hired to prepare a report justifying the shooting,” Nold told the TimesHerald. “These former police officer consultants take contracts with cities and make money justifying police
Although McCoy’s lawyer, civil rights attorney Melissa Nold, said she wasn’t surprised at the outcome, later that night after reading the report she told the TimesHerald she was “outraged.”
shootings. It’s what we do for civil litigation. Each side hires an expert to write opinions justifying or condemning use of force. That isn’t something that would ever be provided to the DA or special prosecutor under any circumstances. That would be comparable to me providing the DA with an expert’s report condemning the shooting and calling it excessive force prior to her making a charging decision.
“The opinions in that report were bought and paid for and it should not have been provided to the special prosecutor (Ramos) as part of the case file,” Nold continued. “The report is not evidence and its inclusion was incredibly unethical and improper and appears calculated to persuade an outcome favorable to the officers. The report also didn’t seem to reflect a competent understanding of the law on the part of the special prosecutor.”
The report by Ramos features statements by six officers involved: Anthony Cano, Collin Eaton, Bryan Glick, Jordan Patzer, Mark Thompson and Ryan McMahon. McMahon was issued his Notice of Termination on Oct. 1, 2020 due to his violations in the shooting of Ronell Foster in February of 2018. He was given the notice after an Internal Affairs investigation concluded, among other things, that “McMahon violated department policies by engaging in unsafe conduct and neglect for basic firearm safety,” a news release stated in October.
McMahon was recommended
to be fired by Vallejo Police Chief Shawny Williams after an investigation a month ago determined he could have accidentally shot his partner, according to public records released in August. Williams wrote that McMahon’s actions were “dangerous” to his colleagues and out of step with “safety norms” of firearms handling. McMahon violated three department policies — any of which, wrote Williams, would support termination of an officer.
Two other officers who were securing the scene and moving a police vehicle also gave brief statements in the report.
Also interviewed in the
report were eight eyewitnesses, including Taco Bell’s assistant manager and employees. According to the assistant manager in the report, “other employees said they heard horns honking in front of the restaurant. The assistant manager (AM) looked out the window east, toward the drive-thru and saw a man sitting at the entrance to the drive-thru. He (the AM) then walked out and walked toward a silver Mercedes. He (the AM) could not see anything due to the heavily tinted windows. He (the AM) got not closer than six feet. He (AM) then went back into the store and called 9-1-1 and told the police department that there was a car idling in the drive-thru, and could not see how many people were in the car due to the tinted windows.” According to this testimony, the AM could not see a gun.
According to Police Officer Eaton, “the plan was to have two patrol vehicles block the Mercedes from the front and rear in the drive thru.” Eaton then saw McCoy begin to wake up.
“The first movement was McCoy to reach across and scratch his left chest area with his right hand,” Eaton says in the report told by Ramos. “McCoy then looked around and then directly at Eaton. McCoy then looked down toward his lap and made a ‘sudden jerky movement’ with both hands toward his lap. McCoy then moved his whole body forward at which point Officer Eaton saw the suspect’s handgun was located. This happened as officers gave him (McCoy) commands which he ignored. Officer Eaton said he believed McCoy’s actions to be a deadly threat toward him and the other officers.”
The postmortem examination, taken by Dr. Arnold Josselsan, Forensic Pathologist for Solano County over two days on Feb. 11 and 12 of 2019, shows there were 38 gunshot wounds and 13 fatal gunshot wounds to the right and left chest area. The cause of the death was the gunshot wounds to the chest.
“The number of shots were outrageous,” Nold told the Times-Herald. “I mean, the threat is gone. This person was asleep.”
Nold said she had a problem with the DA (Abrams) choosing Ramos, saying it was “a conflict of interest.” Ramos made headlines in 2006 for criminally charging an on-duty officer in connection with a shooting, though the officer was acquitted at trial. Ramos charged San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Deputy Ivory Webb with shooting a 21-year-old man in Chino, after a police pursuit, and following a viral video of the shooting.
When asked who should have been picked instead of Ramos, Nold said, “Frankly, anybody. They should have gone to another DA in another district. That’s not uncommon. Even another county would have been better.”