A family in Hemet demanded justice after officers unleashed a hail of bullets that killed their unarmed relative on July 4.
“All they told was that my son was being aggressive to the cops,” mother Mandi Diaz said. “They lied to me. He was sitting down the whole time when they shot my son.”
The shooting happened at about 1:40 a.m. on the Fourth of July when officers from the Hemet Police Department drove to the city’s downtown district after someone reported an intoxicated man walking out of a bar with a gun in his pants. When officers arrived to the 200 block of East Florida Avenue, they found Diaz’s son, 26-year-old Jimmy Lopez.
The family’s lawyer said Lopez was intoxicated, incapacitated and sprawled out on the sidewalk when officers first got there. In a video of the fatal shooting, Lopez is seen with a spotlight shining on him while he sits on the sidewalk.
In the first five seconds of the video, Lopez is seen sitting on the sidewalk with an officer taking cover behind a wall to his left. After that brief moment, Lopez smokes what appears to be an e-cigarette. As he exhales, the officer in the video appears to draw his gun and takes a step to his left.
At the same time, Lopez makes a slight movement to his right. As he does, another officer off-screen opens fire. Seemingly shocked, the officer in the frame briefly ducks behind cover before joining in and opening fire. The cloud of smoke that Lopez exhaled was still visible by the time officers appeared to stop shooting.
The 26-year-old was pronounced dead on the sidewalk. The family’s attorney said officers fired at least 100 rounds.
After the shooting, the California Department of Justice launched an AB 1506 investigation into the shooting. AB 1506 is a California bill that requires the agency to investigate every police shooting that results in the death of an unarmed civilian.
Hemet police did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
“They took his life at a young age, and he did not deserve this,” Lopez’s mother said.
