Pasco police officers who shot Antonio Zambrano-Montes not questioned for months
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Version 0 of 1. The three police officers who shot dead a Mexican man in Pasco, Washington, were not interviewed by investigators examining the case until almost three months after the incident occurred, newly released documents have revealed. So much time had passed that two of the officers said they could no longer remember basic details relating to standard personnel issues, the documents show. Hundreds of pages of interviews and forensics reports, along with new eyewitness video and police dashcam footage of the fatal shooting of Antonio Zambrano-Montes, were released by the county prosecutor on Wednesday and provide the most detailed account of the 10 February incident to date. Related: The Counted: people killed by police in the United States in 2015 – interactive The tranche of documents includes interview transcripts with the three Pasco police officers who shot the 35-year-old, with two of them citing the “long time” since the incident as a reason failing to answer questions. Despite this, all three officers provide vivid and corroborating accounts of the shooting, stating they feared for their lives as Zambrano-Montes attempted to throw rocks, which all three officers described as “cantaloupe”-sized, at them. Lawyers for the Zambrano-Montes family have been heavily critical of the investigation into the death – which was carried out by members of neighbouring police forces assembled into a “Special Investigation Unit” [SIU] –arguing that it “lacks objectivity” and that officers were not “interviewed in a timely fashion”. The decision on whether to charge any of the officers involved in the death falls to the Franklin county prosecutor, Shawn Sant, who has yet to make a ruling, despite releasing almost 600 pages of documents from the SIU investigation on Wednesday. In an interview on 8 May with officer Adam Wright, investigators ask him to recall which squad he had been assigned to that day. Wright replies: “Day shift, um, it’s been so long now that – I – I just had switched crews.” He then fails to deliver a precise answer. In an interview on 30 April, officer Adrian Alaniz is asked to recall his area partner Ryan Flanagan’s “Paul number”, a two-digit sequential identification number, which a spokeswoman for Pasco police told the Guardian does not change on a regular basis. Alaniz replies: “Um, I believe it was – I’m sorry, I don’t remember – it’s been such a long time.” Alaniz was the first officer to arrive on the scene at a busy intersection in downtown Pasco and told investigators Zambrano-Montes’s eyes were “super wide … totally black” and he was spitting with “dry saliva in the corner of his mouth”. He told investigators he believed Zambrano-Montes’s behaviour was “maybe drug-induced”. Alaniz says that when he instructed Zambrano-Montes to drop the rocks he was holding, Zambrano-Montes replied in Spanish: “No, kill me, bitch. Kill me, you fuckin’ bitch, kill me.” The newly published eyewitness video appears to show that Zambrano-Montes attempted to throw a rock at Alianz as another officer, Ryan Flanagan, arrived. Dashboard camera footage from inside Flanagan’s patrol car shows that Alaniz had attempted to deploy a Taser, and appears to show Zambrano-Montes’ attempts to brush the prongs away as he raises an arm holding a rock. Both officers’ descriptions match these events. Further eyewitness footage shows Zambrano-Montes running away from all three officers as they open fire on him in the first of two volleys of gunfire. Forensic evidence released on Wednesday reveals two of these first shots hit a nearby gas station – one striking a vending machine inside the building – with only one bullet potentially grazing Zambrano-Montes. The video shows the 35-year-old cross a busy intersection and run down a street before turning to the pursuing officers, who then open fire again until he collapses on the ground. An object, seemingly a rock, drops from his hand as he is shot. Flanagan, a nine-year veteran who last month announced his resignation from the force, is asked by investigators why, at the point when Zambrano-Montes runs away from officers, they continued to pursue him and use deadly force. He replies: “I wasn’t chasing him down to shoot and kill him. But he wasn’t going to get away, either.” The investigator asks why, with “three officers, one suspect and … one rock”, Flanagan feared for his life and the safety of others. Flanagan replies: “Well, one rock can kill you”. The questions are not repeated or followed up. Related: Pasco police shooting: victim's American dream ends in violent reality During officer Alaniz’s interview, the two-year veteran describes the moment Zambrano-Montes was shot dead in precise detail. “Everything was super vivid,” he recalls. “I can remember seeing the sight of the gun coming back, I can see the – the – the muzzle flash from my weapon. “Um, I can see the rounds, uh, hitting Mr Zambrano and seeing his chest moving, and then as he was dropping to the ground.” Zambrano-Montes’s death has sparked waves of protest in Pasco, a Hispanic-dominated city in America’s northwest. Members of his family, also interviewed by SIU investigators, have called for all three officers to be charged. Sant has given no indication when he will announce his decision on the case. On Wednesday Pasco City manager Dave Zabell commended the prosecutor for releasing the documents with a “quick turnaround” despite their “voluminous” size. |