A judge Wednesday dismissed most of a consolidated lawsuit brought by relatives of two El Monte police officers fatally shot by a felon in that city in 2022, repeating a concern she expressed in September about whether Los Angeles County entities had breached any mandatory duties.
In the previous hearing, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Anne Hwang was skeptical that the problems with the suit could be fixed, but gave lawyers for family members of the late Officers Joseph Santana and Michael Paredes a chance to file an amended complaint.
The judge ruled Wednesday that the problems with the suit were not resolved and that further revisions would be futile.
“The crux of plaintiffs’ argument is that the D.A.’s Office and (District Attorney George) Gascón breached a mandatory duty to exercise discretion on an individualized, case-by-case basis,” the judge wrote. “However, because a prosecutor’s duty to initiate and conduct prosecutions … is discretionary, mandate is not available to compel the district attorney to exercise prosecutorial discretion in any particular way.”
Hwang also said that as with the District Attorney’s Office, the plaintiffs provided no evidence that a breach of a mandatory duty on the part of the county and the Probation Department was a “proximate cause” of the officers’ deaths.
Santana and Paredes responded to a report of a stabbing on June 14, 2022, at the Siesta Inn, where Justin Flores was staying with his wife. The relatives also sued the motel.
The officers rescued the victim, but were subsequently shot to death by Flores. The suits by the officers’ families were consolidated in August and named Los Angeles County, Gascón and his office and the county Probation Department. The claims included including wrongful death, negligence and breach of a mandatory duty, as well as negligence by the motel.
Flores, 35, was placed on probation in a plea deal in 2021 after he was arrested in 2020 for being a felon in possession of a firearm and methamphetamine. Even though Flores had a prior felony conviction for burglary, Gascón issued a directive barring the prosecutor handling Flores’ case from filing a strike allegation against him, the suit stated.
In doing so, Gascon disregarded California’s “three strikes” law, which requires prosecutors to plead prior known strikes, the suit stated.
The plaintiffs’ attorneys maintained that if Gascón had followed the law, Flores would have been sentenced to prison. After being put on probation in March 2021, Flores was only seen by his probation officer once — although he was supposed to have monthly check-ins — and Probation Department members never initiated a desertion proceeding as their own policies required, which would have forced a probation revocation, the suit stated.
On June 2, 2022, the probation officer completed a phone check-in with Flores after learning he was in illegal possession of a gun and had beaten a woman, but Flores did not show up for an appointment four days later and his probation officer never reported the information to law enforcement, the suit stated.
The probation officer filed for a revocation of Flores’ probation a day before the shootings, but Flores was not taken into custody, the suit stated. Flores died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head.