by Bob Walsh
In February of last year Stanislaus County Sheriff's Deputy Justin Wall, 24, shot Elvin Olsen Yadegar, 46, to death in Ripon. There were numerous witnesses and good quality dash cam footage of the incident. After an extensive investigation, including the DOJ, Coroner and DA investigators the D. A. has concluded that they will file charges of felony voluntary manslaughter against Deputy Wall.
In CA felony voluntary manslaughter is defined as, "the specific intent to kill a person under an honest but unreasonable belief in self-defense..."
Yadegar had (allegedly) assaulted a security guard in the wee hours of that day and then fled. She refused to pull over when pursued by the local constabulary. They spiked her car and she continued to drive on flat tires, heading into a residential area off Hwy 99. She stopped briefly and the cops bailed out in an attempt to get her out of the car. She then backed up briefly, arguably towards officers. She then went back into forward and drove away. At that time Deputy Wall opened fire. He was more or less beside her vehicle (as opposed to in front of). None of the other law enforcement personnel present fired. Wall fired four shots. Yadegar was DOA at the hospital.
Yadegar's husband stated that she was bipolar, and off her meds.
Wall is currently on administrative leave.
I have seen the video. It is available on YouTube. My own opinion, for what that is worth, is that it is difficult to be fully supportive of the notion that Deputy Wall was in immediate danger from the movement of the vehicle at the time the shots were fired based on the video.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Wall is in deep shit. Look for him to cop a plea.
We are in the PC age. More and more cops are being charged with killing a suspect if the shooting was not a crystal-clear case of self-defense
3 comments:
Voluntary manslaughter is a probationary offense in a lot of states.
Here we go again.
The United States Supreme Court has ruled that a fleeing person, whom the officer reasonably believes poses a credible threat of serious or deadly harm to himself or to another person, can lawfully be stopped using deadly force.
Posted it twice to other articles here a couple of weeks ago. I can post a synopsis of the decisions again if necessary.
The officer's fate will rest on whether or not the jury buys that he reasonably believed this woman posed a serious threat at the time he shot her. The fact that she had just shot one guy guy and was aggressively evading pursuing officers in a vehicle capable of inflicting deadly harm on others will be brought up in his defense. The claim that she was or was not bi-polar is not a factor.
But this happened, after all, California. So even when he is acquitted he will no doubt be out of a job.
OK. Just reread the article. She didn't shoot the security guard, she assaulted the security guard. That may change things a bit, depending on the nature and the severity of the assault. Or maybe not. We shall see.
(Still working on my first cup of coffee. Missed it the first read. My bad).
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