After So-called Shooting investigation Black Prosecutor Declines to File Charges Against Pasadena Police Officers who Killed Unarmed Black College Student

In photo, Jackie Lacey, the first black female Los Angeles County district attorney, gets a hug from her former boss, Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley, who retired. Cooley is a member of the White Party (GOP) [MORE] In October, a world renowned forensic pathologist said facts presented by the autopsy of Kendrec McDade who was shot to death by Pasadena police officers contradict the official account of his slaying. [MORE] From [HERE] The lawyer representing the family of slain Black teenager Kendrec McDade reacted angrily Monday to the announcement by the District Attorney's Office that the two police officers involved in his shooting death will not face any criminal charges. McDade was fatally shot last March following the reported theft of a backpack.

Kendrec McDade, 19, was killed by two officers who were responding to reports of an armed robbery March 24. Officers Mathew Griffin and Jeff Newlen chased McDade into a dark street in Northwest Pasadena and shot him when his hand was at his waistband, believing he was armed, police said. Investigators later discovered he was not armed and the 911 caller had lied about seeing weapons in order to get a quicker police response.

An autopsy report says he was alive and handcuffed after being struck by a total of seven bullets at close range. At least one bullet was in his back.  The federal lawsuit also alleges McDade was left on the street for a prolonged period of time without receiving first aid. 

McDade also does not fit the profile of the kind of person who would normally commit armed robbery. He has no gang ties or prior arrests, was a star football player in high school, and was a student at Citrus College at the time of his death. [MORE] 

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.

The incident, which came less than a month after the Trayvon Martin shooting in Florida, led to accusations that the officers used excessive force by opening fire on an unarmed man.

McDade's father and others have filed suit against Pasadena police, alleging that officers Jeffery Newlen and Matthew Griffin caused the death "without lawful cause of justification and acting under color of law."

According to the report released by prosecutors Monday, Griffin and Newlen both told investigators they believed McDade was armed as they chased him — Griffin in a patrol car and Newlen on foot.

"At every point that I saw him, he was still clutching his waistband," Griffin said in the report. "I felt that it was a gun that he didn't want to give up." Newlen said that even when McDade fell during the pursuit, he kept his right hand at his waist, according to the report.

In a statement Monday, McDade family attorney Caree Harper blasted the report by the D.A.'s Justice System Integrity Division.

"We have completed a cursory review of the so-called shooting investigation and, quite frankly, find it remarkable and insulting that the authors think the public will believe the contorted stories told by the Officers Newlen and Griffin," she stated.

"From the onset, the reader should be particularly skeptical when the author of the  document says that, 'the analysis is based on reports prepared by … and submitted to this office by Detective Jason Van Hecke'

"Van Hecke is/was the partner of Det. Keith Gomez who is a named defendant in the federal wrongful death action in the McDade case and is the subject of multiple investigations by outside agencies. (Det. Gomez took the statement of Oscar Carrillo and failed to arrest him for two days for the felony false report.)

According to Harper, the report fails to detail that the police handcuffed the mortally wounded teen and she asks how long did they "let him bleed out and did they hasten his death?"

She also stated that the officers never [originally] said they saw a bulge, an object or anything in the waistband area.

"Our review of this document will be more thorough later this week and more comments will be forthcoming. But this is quite simply another example of the devaluation of a young life in Northwest Pasadena," she concluded.

Meanwhile, activist Najee Ali, reacted with resignation Monday.

"I was not shocked at all," he said. "This was a police murder that I knew they would get away with, they always do. Very little has changed when it comes to the execution of Blacks by law enforcement. The D.A. rarely prosecutes police officers under any circumstances."

Activist and media commentator Earl Ofari Hutchinson shared Ali's disappointment, but retained a glimmer of hope that newly elected D.A. Jackie Lacey, the first African-American to hold the post, might usher in new thinking.

"The problem is the absolute refusal by the D.A. to prosecute police officers for misconduct," he said. "That sends a very dangerous message; that acts of abuse or misconduct up to and including wrongful death are not going to be criminally sanctioned. So it's almost an open license for police officers and higher ups to commit acts of abuse."