A Los Angeles police officer who alleges he was wrongly disciplined after he fatally shot an unarmed man testified Wednesday he thought the man was reaching for a gun in his waistband
“It looked like he was arming himself,” Officer Allan Corrales told a Los Angeles Superior Court jury while recounting the shooting of 27-year-old Steven Eugene Washington. “It kind of made the back of my hair stand.”
Corrales said he yelled “waistband, waistband, waistband” to his partner and driver of their patrol car, Officer George Diego.
“I thought I was going to die because I believed he had a gun at this time,” Corrales testified. “At that point I thought I was going to get shot.”
The shooting of occurred about midnight on March 20, 2010, in the 800 block of South Vermont Avenue in Koreatown. Corrales was still in the patrol car when he fired at Washington.
Both Diego and Corrales were assigned at the time to the Olympic Division gang detail. Diego testified that both officers were nearing the end of their shifts and when they saw Washington walking north on Vermont before the confrontation. Diego said he fired one shot after getting out of the car but the bullet missed Washington.
In their lawsuit filed in November 2012, Corrales and Diego maintain that because they are Latino and the man Corrales shot was black, they have been denied various work opportunities within the LAPD and the chance to do armed security work outside the department in retaliation when they complained. The civil case is in its second week of trial.
Deputy City Attorney Daniel Aguilera has denied any racial discrimination occurred and said both men have been treated the same as any other officer in their situation.
Chief Charlie Beck found that the use of deadly force by Corrales was justified, but the Police Commission still concluded the officers’ actions were wrong, in particular Corrales’ use of lethal force in alleged violation of LAPD policy.
The two officers have still not been cleared to return to the field. Diego said he currently is assigned to the LAPD’s Force Investigation Division.
— City News Service