A Store Owner said Andres Guardado 'Got Down on His Knees and Surrendered w/his Hands Behind his Head but Cops Shot him 5X in the Back. Then Cops Removed Video.' LA County to Pay Teen’s Family $8M
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From [HERE] Los Angeles County has agreed to pay an $8 million settlement to the family of Andrés Guardado for the wrongful death of their son.
"While the settlement reached with the County of Los Angeles brings closure to more than two years of the civil lawsuit, it does not bring with it peace to our family or justice for our son, Andrés," said Cristobal Guardado. "Peace and justice will only come when the current investigations are completed, and Deputy Miguel Vega is held criminally responsible for Andrés' death."
Andrés Guardado was an 18-year-old Latino man shot in the back and was killed by a Deputy Sheriff from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department near Gardena and West Compton on June 18, 2020. Guardado ran from two uniformed police officers into an alley, where he died after being shot by deputies. Seven shots were fired and Guardado was hit in the upper torso. Store-owner Andrew Heney reported that several cameras at the scene, including a digital video recorder that stored surveillance footage, were taken and destroyed by police.
Guardado’s death prompted an immediate uproar and mass protests. The victim’s family demanded an investigation and the release of all information on the case. At first, the authorities refused to reveal the results of the official autopsy. Guardado’s parents responded by requesting an independent examination of the body. After those results were made public following days of protests, the local coroner relented and, against the wishes of the Sheriff’s Department, shared its conclusions and it confirmed what the family’s autopsy had already found: five chillingly precise gunshot wounds on Guardado’s back.
What followed paints a grim picture of the opacity that still surrounds the use of force in Los Angeles, a city with a long history of police brutality. After the results of both autopsies confirmed the killing of a young man who was clearly running for his life, Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva went on the defensive. “These things take time, they are not done overnight,” Villanueva said. He then blamed accounts of potential witnesses from social media for slowing down the process, and insisted that “everyone who says that means that’s another potential witness that we have to interview.”
Guardado’s family would have none of it and demanded answers. Andrés, they said, did not own a gun. “My son wanted to be a doctor,” Elisa Guardado said. “He wanted to take care of me. Who’s going to take care of me now?”
Police were reportedly out on patrol when they saw Guardado talking to someone in a car blocking a driveway, so they stopped their vehicle.Police say that Guardado ran away and allegedly produced a firearm at some point in the chase, although this is disputed by his family and employer. The chase was taken southbound on Redondo Beach Blvd. and through a nearby alleyway.
At around 5:53 p.m., Guardado was shot at six times by one or multiple sheriff's deputies and hit in the upper body. Guardado died on scene. Store-owner Andrew Heney stated that Guardado "got down on his knees and surrendered with his hands behind his head but was still shot seven times in the back." The shooting occurred near a business located in the 400 block of Redondo Beach Boulevard near S. Figueroa Street. A gun was reportedly recovered on the scene. The gun recovered at the scene was a "ghost gun" (a term used to describe an illegal firearm with no serial numbers imprinted on the gun) with a standard capacity magazine. Both of those are felonies in the state of California. It was unclear what "prompted the use of force" and what Guardado was "suspected of" to initially prompt the chase.
Heney stated, "the police came up, and they pulled their guns on him and he ran because he was scared, and they shot and killed him. He’s got a clean background and everything. There’s no reason." A witness on the scene stated, "I turned around and saw two male white officers running up into the body shop where not even less than a second later I heard rapid gunshots, [I heard] about four to five shots fired [and] never heard them say ‘freeze’. I never once heard them say 'stop.' Nothing like that."
The deputies reportedly were not wearing body cameras. Lt. Charles Calderaro stated that deputies "are hoping to find surveillance video from nearby businesses."[8] The sheriff's officers are accused of destroying several cameras at the scene and taking possession of the DVR that stored footage filmed by the surveillance cameras. In an interview, Heney is quoted as saying that the deputies "illegally got into everything, then they had the place locked down and then they got the warrant.". [MORE]
According to the family's attorneys, Guardado proceeded to walk away from the deputy and his partner before opening fire. The attorneys said they shot him multiple times in the back.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office are still investigating the fatal shooting.
