Report contradicts police chief’s claim in officer’s fatal shooting of 22-year-old

Police took time to confirm shooting, almost two days to report death

VALLEJO >> The chief of police’s claim that a 22-yearold San Francisco man was not declared dead for hours after police shot him was directly contradicted by a news report asserting that his death was pronounced one hour after the shooting.

Sean Monterrosa was shot by a Vallejo officer around 12:30 a.m. June 2. The officer mistook a hammer near Monterrosa’s waist for a gun while responding to a report of looting at a local pharmacy, Vallejo Police Chief Shawny Williams said last week.

The officer was identified by multiple law enforcement sources as Jarrett Tonn, a veteran police officer who has had three prior shootings since 2015. Tonn and several “witness officers” were placed on administrative leave after the shooting, police said.

Police confirmed around 4 a.m. — roughly 31/2 hours after the shooting and 21/2 hours after Monterrosa’s reported time of death — that an “officer-involved” shooting had taken place while offering almost no further details.

It took the department more than a day and a half to publicly report that an officer had killed someone. At a news conference, Williams was asked about the delays and said that “when we pushed out the information, (Monterrosa) wasn’t pronounced dead.”

The new report from ABC7 found that Monterrosa’s official time of death was 1:31 a.m., roughly one hour after he was shot. Asked Wednesday to clarify the discrepancy, Williams, did not respond to calls for comment.

Local elected officials already have ripped the delay between the shooting and confirmation of a death and have called for a thirdparty investigation into the shooting.

Williams called a news conference Tuesday in which he condemned widespread looting that had taken place throughout the city over the past 12 hours, but he didn’t offer any details into Monterrosa’s death.

“Regardless of circumstances, it is absolutely unacceptable that the public was forced to wait for over 24 hours to learn of the conditions of those involved in the shooting,” Assemblyman Tim Grayson, whose district includes Vallejo, said in a news release last week.

The incident comes as the California Attorney General’s Office is readying itself for a rare review of the Vallejo Police Department’s practices and procedures, including use-of-force policies. Over the past decade, Vallejo cops have shot 32 people, 18 of them fatally; no officer has been fired for his role in a police shooting in that time.

Including Monterrosa’s death, Tonn has fired his duty weapon on four separate incidents during his career, including two shootings within six weeks in 2017, and a shooting in 2015 in which he fired 18 times. None of the three prior shootings resulted in a death; internal investigations cleared Tonn of wrongdoing each time.

On June 2, Tonn and other officers were responding to reports of people trying to break into the Walgreens on the 1000 block of Redwood Street. On the night of June 1 and early morning of June 2, there were widespread looting and civil unrest across the city; someone even started a fire inside City Hall.

The Vallejo police union — which has not confirmed Tonn’s name — said in a news release that Monterrosa appeared to be armed and was “crouching,” which the officer perceived as him readying himself to shoot. Williams said the officer mistook Monterrosa’s hammer for the butt of a gun.

Members of Monterrosa’s family said they believe he was surrendering when he was shot. They have retained the services of civil rights attorney John Burris and are planning to take legal action against the city.

There were protests in Vallejo for several days after Monterrosa was killed. Protestors marched down Sonoma Boulevard, and demonstrated outside the Vallejo police station.

Monterrosa’s death marked the first fatal Vallejo police shooting since February 2019, when six Vallejo officers fired dozens of shots at Willie McCoy, a 20-yearold Suisun City resident who was asleep in his car — in a Taco Bell drive-thru — with a pistol in his lap. The shooting drew criticism and national news coverage, and is the subject of a federal lawsuit filed by Burris’ firm.

“Regardless of circumstances, it is absolutely unacceptable that the public was forced to wait for over 24 hours to learn of the conditions of those involved in the shooting.”

— Tim Grayson, assemblyman whose district includes Vallejo, in a news release last week