Hundreds Demand Justice for Latino Man Killed by White Manteca Police Officer (keep your protest signs, it will happen again)

"You Should expect to be killed in the name of racism anytime, any place. You have been marked as an enemy because you are [non-white]. Keep your protest signs because this will happen again" - Nelly Fuller on the radio 12/12/12. [MORE]

From [HERE] More than one hundred people marched through Manteca Sunday, protesting the controversial death of Ernesto Duenez, fatally shot 11 times by a Manteca Police Officer during an altercation 2 years ago this week. Protestors from all over the state marched from Flores Avenue to the Manteca Police Department.

“We will never stop searching for justice,” Duenez’s sister told FOX40. “He is our loved one, we fight for his life and for his death. The officer who killed my brother needs to be behind bars.”

Manteca Police told FOX40 Sunday the department stands by the officer’s decision. The officer now works in the special investigations unit at the Manteca Police Department.

White prosecutors in the San Joaquin County district attorney’s office concluded that California Police Officer James Moody had been legally justified in shooting 34-year-old Ernesto Duenez Jr., but the video might bring the case back to court. 

On June 8, 2011, the officer ordered Duenez to get out of his pickup truck, which was parked in the driveway of his house.  When he complied and exited his vehicle, Officer Moody immediately opened fire, shooting 13 times and riddling the man with 11 bullets in 4.2 seconds as he rolled on the ground.

Eleven bullets hit him - once in the head, eight times in the body and twice in the extremities - and four while he was already on the ground. He died of gunshot wounds to his chest and abdomen.

His wife, Whitney Duenez, is seen running out of the home, heartbroken and screaming at the police officer, who tells her to stay back. She rushes to her husband's side as her husband rolls over clutching his chest.

According to the Manteca Bulletin, it wasn't until more officers arrived that they realized Duenez's foot was caught in his seatbelt.

Moody claims he shot the victim because he saw Duenez holding a knife. An 8-inch knife with a 4-inch blade was later found in the bed of the truck, but Duenez was not carrying it at the time of the shooting. The footage also shows the victim’s foot getting stuck in the seatbelt while he was trying to exit the vehicle. (in other words the officer lied.) 

The camera footage contradicts the story told by the officer, showing a situation in which Duenez posed no threat to the police.

“This is more barbaric than even the Oscar Grant shooting,” Oakland attorney John Burris, who filed a wrongful-death lawsuit, told the San Francisco Chronicle. [MORE]