From [HERE] The L.A. County district attorney's office will not charge a man with involuntary manslaughter after he falsely claimed he was robbed at gunpoint, setting off a chain of events that ended with an officer fatally shooting a Black college student. Kendrec McDade, 19 year old was shot and killed by officers Mathew Griffin and Jeffrey Newlen on March 24. The Pasadena-branch of the NAACP President has criticized the Police Department's tactics and the tepid reaction by city leaders to the tragedy.

The unarmed black man was killed on a narrow street in the city's northeast sectionas he was being chased by an officer and his path blocked by a police car.

McDade's family has filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the city and the police officers. The Police Department has said McDade was holding his waistband at the time of the shooting, and the officers involved say they believe he was going for a weapon. McDade was shot at point-blank range by one Pasadena police officer and handcuffed after being struck by a total of seven bullets, according to the Los Angeles County coroner's office autopsy report.

Prosecutors found that Oscar Carrillo lied when he said he was robbed at gunpoint by McDade, but the lie just "was one in a series of acts ... that culminated in the fatal shooting," the prosecutor's report said. Deputy Dist. Atty. Scott Goodwin said McDade's decisions to run from police and eventually dash toward a police vehicle blocking his path were significant intervening factors and not a "foreseeable consequence of Carillo's 911 call."

Moments before McDade was fatally shot, Carrillo had called 911, alleging that two men had stolen his laptop computer on Orange Grove Boulevard and that he was robbed at gunpoint. Obvious to all except white prosecutors that the false information led police to beleive that McDade was armed and dangerous. McDade was eventually shot as he ran toward the police vehicle, clutching the right side of his waistband, Goodwin wrote in a report. 

Goodwin wrote that when confronted with a surveillance video of the theft, Carrillo admitted that the men never confronted him, that the computer was stolen from his car and that he never saw a gun.

In the aftermath of the shooting, Pasadena police arrested Carrillo, saying that his statements had led to the fatal shooting.

"Mr. Carrillo emphatically indicated a gun was involved ... that is very important. It sets the platform for the mind-set of the responding officers," Pasadena Police Chief Phillip Sanchez told reporters.

But Goodwin found that a charge of manslaughter was not supported by the evidence. The district attorney's office has referred the case to Pasadena city prosecutors for a criminal charge of misdemeanor filing of a false police report.

Expert Contradicts Police Story

In June a world renowned forensic pathologist said facts presented by the autopsy contradicted the official account of his slaying.

Dr. Cyril Wecht reviewed a report on the death of Kendrec McDade generated by a medical examiner with the Los Angeles County Department of Coroner. Wecht said there were multiple inconsistencies between the autopsy and an account of the shooting given by Pasadena police officers.

Among the contradictions is a statement by Police Department officials that McDade was at close range as he approached a patrol car and appeared to reach for a weapon in his waist band. "There was no soot from the burning powder, or stippling, that produced superficial burns on the skin," Wecht said. "The rule of thumb for handguns, if they are less than 24 inches there needs to be some stippling."

A noted expert witness who has consulted on and testified in cases ranging from the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. to the Manson Family killings and the slaying of JonBenet Ramsey, Wecht also questioned Pasadena's claim that McDade became combative after being shot and it was necessary to handcuff the fatally wounded teenager.

"I find it difficult to find someone who has been shot seven times - with gunshot wounds to major arteries - can be considered combative," Wecht said. 

After being shot by police he was handcuffed. Given the injuries sustained by McDade, Wecht found his treatment by the Pasadena police officers at the scene lacking in "sensitivity and common sense."

McDade family Attorney Caree Harper has consistently called into question the use of handcuffs on the Citrus College student as he lay dying in the street.

"Not only am I concerned about the handcuffing of my client, but handcuffing him was outrageous," Harper said.