Derrick Jones Wrongful Death Case Against OPD Heads to Trial
/A wrongful death lawsuit brought by the ex-wife of a 37-year-old man killed by two Oakland Police officers in November 2010 is scheduled for trial on Monday morning at the federal courthouse in downtown Oakland. On November 8, 2010, OPD Officers Eriberto Perez-Angeles and Omar Daza-Quiroz shot and killed Derrick Jones in East Oakland. Jones, who had been involved with an altercation with a woman in his barbershop on Bancroft Avenue earlier that that day, fled the two officers when they attempted to question him. Perez-Angeles and Daza-Quiroz unsuccessfully tried to stun Jones with a Taser while he ran, and then shot him to death in an alley on Trask Avenue after they mistook a digital scale in his hands for a weapon.
Jones' death, which came just days after mass protests over the two-year sentence given to ex-BART police officer Johannes Mehserle for killing Oscar Grant on January 1, 2009, touched off another round of vehement demonstrations in Oakland.
Last month, the Oakland City Council approved a settlement of $225,000 in relation to a separate wrongful death suit brought by Jones' parents, Nellie and Frank Jones. However, Jones' ex-wife, Lanell Monique Jones, did not drop her suit. US District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers will preside over the trial.
At the time of his death, Jones was on parole for a gun offense, fact cited by his relatives as a possible reason for why he fled from police following an altercation with a woman he was formerly involved with.
Both Perez-Angeles and Daza-Quiroz also were involved in the July 19, 2008 fatal shooting of Leslie Allen, according to records from the Alameda County District Attorney's Office. The Alameda District Attorney's office cleared both officers of criminal misconduct in the Jones and the Allen shootings.
In addition, records from the City of Mountain View reveal that while Perez-Angeles was in the US Marine Corps and living in Burlingame, he and two other men were arrested by police for assaulting a man outside a bar on March 3, 2000. Perez-Angeles was charged with battery causing serious bodily harm and pleaded no contest to an infraction in Santa Clara County court later that year.
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