The cops acted confidently:
Dale Johnson was confident he had a legal right to pursue and detain Luis Gutierrez that fatal day in April 2009.
The Yolo County sheriff's lieutenant, who was then a sergeant and head of the county's gang task force, testified in Sacramento federal court that, when Gutierrez ran from him, he had cause to believe Gutierrez was up to no good.
He was a "Hispanic male" in baggy clothes walking in an area where gang members hang out, Johnson testified.
He saw the officer's badge, Johnson said, yet ran away, with his hand in the right front pocket of his shorts.
"It was a very dynamic thing that had happened," Johnson told the jury of eight women and one man. "It was not normal. I believed that some criminal activity could be taking place. He could have just committed a crime. He may have a warrant out for his arrest."
It was over in less than a minute, according to Johnson. He caught up with Gutierrez, grabbed him briefly by the shoulders but couldn't hang on, and Gutierrez ducked away and stopped. Gutierrez swiped at him with a folding knife, he testified, so Johnson pulled his service handgun and fired four times.
But all of this may be rubbish:
She appeared uncomfortable recalling the incident, and was a reluctant witness who had to be subpoenaed by plaintiffs' lawyers in order to assure her appearance at the farmworker's wrongful-death trial. She gave short, mostly one-word answers, volunteering nothing.You don't have to believe that Gutierrez had a knife, or that one was planted by the cops. All you have to believe is that Gutierrez didn't recognize his plainclothes assailants as cops, and decided to flee from a highly-irregular, highly-aggressive approach while vulnerable on the Gum Avenue overpass. And for that, he was killed.
But by the time she had finished Wednesday, her testimony dramatically contradicted the accounts of two Yolo County sheriff's deputies accused of violating the victim's constitutional rights and killing him without just cause.
...She was driving east on the Gum Avenue overpass above state Highway 113 when she noticed a black Ford Taurus behind her going east in the westbound lane of the two-lane street.
Still in the wrong lane, the car pulled to the curb and two men jumped out and began running at Gutierrez, who was walking east on the sidewalk adjacent to the westbound lane. She said there appeared to be nothing unusual about Gutierrez, who looked behind him and began to run from the two men.
Even though the pursuers were dressed in T-shirts and jeans and the car was unmarked, Fletes said she assumed it was police business because she recognized Yolo County sheriff's Sgt. Dale Johnson from a fitness center she frequented and knew he was a law enforcement officer.
Curious, Fletes said, she slowed down and eventually pulled to the curb and stopped.
She said Gutierrez ran 10 to 15 feet down the sidewalk, then veered into the street in front of her car. Johnson was hot on his heels, no more than 15 feet behind, with a gun in his hand, she said. At this point, she said, she did not see the other man who had alighted from the car.
"I heard one shot, but I don't know where it came from," Fletes told the jury. She said that just before Gutierrez reached the other side of the street he turned to face Johnson, then fell to the ground.
"I was told they had this under control and to move forward," Fletes recalled.
...Virtually every part of Fletes' testimony runs counter to the story told to the jury earlier by Johnson and the other pursuing officer, sheriff's Deputy Hernan Oviedo.
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