Homeless man allegedly hit officers with rocks before police used deadly force

[hand2handking]

[h1]Homeless man allegedly hit officers with rocks before police used deadly force[/h1]
Published February 12, 2015

Feb. 10, 2015: Police investigate the scene of an officer involved shooting. (AP)

A Washington state homeless man had thrown rocks and hit two officers

before he was shot and killed by police at a busy intersection, authorities

said Wednesday.

Pasco, Wash. Police Chief Bob Metzger said authorities had used a

stun gun on the man, but it was ineffective. Officers fired their guns

because of his "threatening" behavior, he said.

Witnesses say, 35-year-old Antonio Zambrano-Montes was

running away when he was shot by police. The Tri-City Herald reports  

the man ran about a half of a block before he was killed Tuesday outside

a grocery store.

Zambrano-Montes' last known address was at a homeless shelter.

In an e-mail interview with The Associated Press, Dario Infante, 21, said he

recorded video of the scene. Infante said he saw the homeless man

throw rocks at the officers, but they did not strike them. The man can

be seen running away being pursued by three officers.

As the officers draw closer to the running man, he stops, turns around

and faces them. Multiple "pops" are heard and the man falls to the ground.

"He didn't throw any rocks after he started running," Infante said.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Washington issued a statement

Wednesday calling the incident, "very disturbing."

"Fleeing from police and not following an officer's command should

not be sufficient for a person to get shot," the group's executive director,

Kathleen Taylor. Deadly force should be used only as a last resort, she said.

Three officers involved in the shooting were placed on leave for the

investigation, Metzger said.

Tuesday's shooting was the fourth officer-involved killing in Pasco in the

last six months. All officers have been cleared of any wrong doing in

the previous cases.

 

[SC kid]

Rocks can kill.

 

[doublemesh96]

Guess you can say, he got his rocks off...




View media item 1393752

 

[panaricanretro]

Absolutely ridiculous. I've never seen such a "shoot-to-kill" mentality be so prevalent in cases like this as I have in the last couple of years. I could see when the suspect has a firearm and it's risking a split second could kill you, but rocks?

 

[mrgrapes85]

Absolutely terrible, 3 officers shot the man?

There is NO way this justified.

 

[stuntastic020]

no wonder the three officers killed him, he threw a rock at them|I

 

[hand2handking]

 

[hand2handking]

 [h1]Meanwhile, In Police Brutality: Washington Police Fatally Shoot Father Of Two For Throwing Rocks (VIDEO)[/h1]
Feb 12, 2015

By  Christina Coleman

A 35-year-old homeless man  in Pasco, Wash. was shot and killed  after throwing multiple rocks at two police officers in what Pasco Police Chief  Bob Metzger  called “threatening” behavior.

Metzger said the officers first used a stun gun on the man, identified as Antonio Zambrano-Montes, but it had no effect. After Zambrano-Montes refused to put the remaining “softball size” rocks down, the officers opened fire.  The police chief said he does not know whether a weapon was found. Zambrano-Montes, whose last address was a homeless shelter, was pronounced dead on the scene.

Witnesses say the rocks thrown did not hit the officers.

Dario Infante, 21, of Pasco, recorded video  (above) from a vehicle about 50 feet away as the scene unfolded. In an email interview, he said he decided to start recording when he saw an officer trying to use a stun gun on the man. Infante said he saw the man throw a few rocks at police officers but he didn’t see him hit any officers. Five “pops” are audible shortly after the video begins, and the man can be seen running away, across a street and down a sidewalk, pursued by three officers.

As the officers draw closer to the running man, he stops, turns around and faces them. Multiple “pops” are heard and the man falls to the ground.

“He didn’t throw any rocks after he started running,” Infante said.

Another witness noted that the victim’s back was turned when he was shot dead by officers.

“I really thought they were just going walk up and tackle or tase him,” he said. “But they opened fire. His back was turned.”

Patrick’s wife, Shannon, also said the man was running away. The shooting happened in front of her young children.

“He turned around to take off running and the cops just shot him,” she said. “All he was trying to do was walk away.”

Other witnesses heard officers give the man orders to stop and drop the rock. They said the man refused to listen.

A cousin of Zambrano-Montes spoke to reporters about the force police used in the incident, saying the shooting “could have been avoided.”

“We just want justice because today it happened to us, tomorrow it could be any other family,” Blanca Zambrano, a cousin of Zambrano-Montes, told KNDO/KNDU. “It could have been avoided, there could have been other ways around it,” she continued in Spanish. “[The family] can’t believe it.”

She said Zambrano-Montes, who had two daughters, worked at an orchard and had lived in Pasco for more than 10 years. She said he recently suffered from depression after breaking both wrists in an accident at work.

The three officers on the scene have been identified as Ryan Flanagan, Adam Wright, and  Adrian Alaniz. All three have been placed on administrative leave, pending an investigation. This is the fourth fatal shooting involving an officer in Pasco in the last six months, according to the Chicago Tribune.

All officers involved in a fatal shooting during that time period have been cleared of any wrongdoing.

 

[wallyhopp]

Seemed very busy in that street. A stray bullet could have hit a child. I guess unless its a child of an officer, the lives at stake do not matter.


As busy as it was, this seemed way too excessive. Cops don't want to sweat anymore. Shoot, charge the city for new ammo cache, get off on the charges, take a nice paid leave, and get back to killing people

 

[htg designs]

#alllivesmatter

 

[Based Jesus]

Dude was an idiot for throwing the rock but that's not something to shoot someone over

and so many times.

Dude was running away with his hands up and they murdered him in cold blood and there's hard video evidence.

 

[doublemesh96]

Honestly tho are y'all surprised? The pigs aren't going to stop.

 

[beacon ave south]

Real talk... whats the ONE reason why this has not reach two ****ing pages?

 

[celticspride34]

Real talk... whats the ONE reason why this has not reach two ****ing pages?

Desensitization...

 

[fontaine]

Real talk... whats the ONE reason why this has not reach two ****ing pages?

:x

Look like a damb video game...

Did he turn and throw rocks at them?

I couldn't make it out

 

[frank mucus]

If he threw rocks why couldn't they just shoot the rocks out of his hand. That rock would've explodeded and injured the homeless man and no one else.

Look like a damb video game...

Did he turn and throw rocks at them?

I couldn't make it out

Looks he had thrown rocks before and is now on a run

 

[superb]

Clearly murder. Baseball players get hit with high speed balls all the time and survive.

 

[Top Boy]

 

[transatlanticak]

Damn that video was wild, he deserved a shot in the lower extremities for inciting them but 8 to the chest cold

 

[grimeyy]

Here we go again, another thread where Cop haters will flourish

 

[Based Jesus]

Damn that video was wild, he deserved a shot in the lower extremities for inciting them but 8 to the chest cold

What? He didn't deserve to be shot at all.

 

[spiceman80]

Here we go again, another thread where Cop haters will flourish

You don't have to be a cop hater see the injustice in the way the three officers handled this thing. If the guy did throw rocks, so what? Chase him down, if you can't catch him, take out your tazer and let loose on his ***. This shoot to kill mentally for all situations is a big problem. Where is the fear for their lives, if they had to chase the man down? That is always their excuse, and here we see this dude wasn't a threat.

Real talk... whats the ONE reason why this has not reach two ****ing pages?

Casper

 

[prayformojo]

He shouldnt have been shot. Period. But this man's actions directly led to the escalation of the incident and him geting shot. Right or wrong, you have to listen and obey a cop. If the cop is wrong, fight him in court. But if you choose to fight the cops in the street, most likely you will end up losing, possibly your life.

 

[tripda6]

Cops are trash.

 

[hand2handking]

 [h1]Pasco police shooting victim's friends say he was always smiling
 

[/h1][h2]The memorial for Antonio Zambrano-Montes, outside Vinny's Bakery and Cafe in Pasco, Washington. IMAGE: MASHABLE COLIN DAILEDA[/h2]
BY COLIN DAILEDA
2 DAYS AGO

PASCO, Washington —

People have said a lot of things about Antonio Zambrano-Montes in the week after he was shot and killed by police: He was depressed, mentally unstable, homeless and broken. Yet some of his friends can't think of him without remembering his smile.

"He was always happy," Cody Minnis, who met Zambrano-Montes while they were both staying at a Pasco homeless shelter, told Mashable. "Even when he was down he put a smile on for everybody."

Zambrano-Montes, 35, was confronted by three police officers on Feb. 10 while he was allegedly hurling rocks at cars at a busy intersection in Pasco. The police chased him and fatally shot him just as he turned around and seemed to put his hands up. 

His friends still have trouble believing that the man in that video is the same Zambrano-Montes they knew. They remember him as someone who could hardly stop talking, who liked to chat about nearly anything with anybody who would listen, and who could make you forget what time it was while he spoke.

"He would always tell me, 'You don't have to be sad because you have your whole life to be happy,'" Bertha Coria, who was Zambrano-Montes' neighbor for a year in Pasco, told Mashable.

Though he could talk about anything, Coria said Zambrano-Montes' favorite subject was his two teenage daughters, Teresa and Erica.

"He would brag about everything his daughters did," Coria said.

But he didn't get to see them all that much. They lived with his wife in California, who took out a protection order against him years ago, saying Zambrano-Montes had abused her.

The many miles that separated him from his daughters added a layer of sadness to the depression-like symptoms Pasco residents say he was dealing with.

Zambrano-Montes' life had begun to spiral south in recent months. He was on methamphetamine last year when he was convicted of assault after hitting cars with a broomstick and trying to grab a police officer's gun.

He had recently broken both his wrists after falling off a ladder at an apple orchard, and was struggling to find work. Then, in January, he had to be rescued from a house fire where he was living, forcing him to move into the homeless shelter.

Even then, Minnis said he remembers Zambrano-Montes smiling and talking to anyone who was around. But he also remembers that few people were willing to listen to him.

"When it came to his problems, everybody vanished," Minnis said. "Nobody was around to talk."