Tracy police released video from a Latino officer's camera Tuesday of him shooting a 17-year-old boy armed with a knife in this California city of about 100,000 people located 60 miles east of San Francisco. .
The incident occurred on January 27 and the young man was injured.
It is the third shooting in the last 20 years in which a Tracy police officer is involved, and the recording is released at a time when the entire country is shocked by the beating death of Tire Nichols in Memphis (Tennessee) during a police check.
It also adds to the death of Guillermo Medina, a Latino with mental health problems who was shot by police in December in Culver City (California).
His family filed a lawsuit against the city Tuesday, his attorneys announced.
A Tracy police officer shoots a 17-year-old boy. Tracy Police
Police officers arrived at a Tracy home around 2 p.m. Jan. 27 and found a person wielding a large knife who began to approach the officer, police said in a statement.
The policeman, identified as Carlos Ramírez, 28, ordered him to stop and drop the knife, but the man did not obey and advanced towards him.
“Fearing for his safety and that of those in the area,” the officer fired his weapon, hitting the man.
Other officers assisted him with first aid until the emergency services arrived and took the young man to a hospital.
The
teen is in critical but stable condition
and is expected to survive.
The police officer involved was uninjured.
Although no official charges have been filed, police say they will recommend charges of assault with a deadly weapon to the district attorney.
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In the video, the officer is heard repeatedly saying
“put the knife down” before firing two shots
, in the arm and abdomen, as the man walks towards him.
"He acted in accordance with department protocol," said Police Chief Sekou Millington, adding that officers are equipped to use non-deadly force but that in this case it was not possible. According to Millington, "he did not have time to to consider the possibility of using a taser.”
The camera of a neighboring house showed the previous moment that led to the call to the 911 emergency telephone number by a neighbor.
According to the police, the video shows a fight between the young man and his family.
“It started with the brother.
He went on to have a fight with his father.
You can see on the video that the subject hits the mother, hits the sister and hits the father with a knife," Millington said.
The police chief pointed out that in the video it is heard that those involved speak little English.
“There is a language barrier.
There's no doubt.
I think the universal language of uniform, police car, gun drawn, no matter where you're from, means not approaching with a deadly weapon," the chief said.
The family comes from Afghanistan.
Following the incident, members of the local Islamic community asked to meet with the police before the video was made public and discuss police tactics.
