A former Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy who was initially charged with voluntary manslaughter for the on-duty shooting of a man in Willowbrook pleaded no contest Friday to a pair of lesser felony charges and was immediately sentenced to 30 days in jail and two years probation.
Andrew Lyons, 39, pleaded no contest to one felony count each of assault with a semiautomatic firearm and assault under the color of authority for the June 16, 2019, shooting of Ryan Twyman, a 24-year-old father of three, in a case that District Attorney George Gascón said marked the first conviction in Los Angeles County in two decades involving a shooting by an on-duty law enforcement officer.
Lyons was taken into custody immediately after the sentencing in the downtown Los Angeles courtroom, as members of the victim’s family and their supporters applauded.
The voluntary manslaughter charge against Lyons was dropped as part of his plea agreement with prosecutors.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Eleanor J. Hunter noted that Lyons will be barred for life from possessing a firearm. He is also expected to surrender his certification as a law enforcement officer in California.
“The facts of the case fell where they were,” the judge said. “It came down to a legal issue more than anything else.”
Lyons was originally charged in March 2022 with voluntary manslaughter and two felony counts of assault with an assault weapon. His attorneys, Michael Rains and Nicole Castronovo, issued a joint statement after the plea reiterating their contention that the case was a politically motivated attempted by the district attorney to appear tough on law enforcement officers.
“From the outset, we have stated this is a case based in politics, not facts,” they said. “The facts in this case demonstrate that Mr. Lyons did not kill Mr. Twyman. The dismissal of the voluntary manslaughter charge by the District Attorney’s Office underscores this truth. Mr. Lyons has reluctantly agreed to accept a plea in this matter and to end his 15-year law enforcement career out of his belief that it is in the best interest of his family.”
The defense previously questioned whether the shots fired by Lyons caused his death, noting that two different deputies fired four fatal rounds at Twyman.
Lyons and another sheriff’s deputy responded to an apartment complex in Willowbrook and approached a parked vehicle where Twyman was sitting, with both deputies opening fire after Twyman put the car in reverse, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.
The car came to a stop nearby, and Lyons retrieved his semiautomatic assault rifle and shot into the vehicle after it stopped moving, according to the district attorney.
Twyman was struck by bullets in the neck and upper body and pronounced dead at the scene.
A passenger in the vehicle was not struck by gunfire, but had fragments of glass in his hair and was taken to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center for evaluation.
At Friday’s hearing, the victim’s father, Charles, told the former deputy that he had “hunted my son down.”
“You assassinated him,” he said. “There is no victory here.”
Speaking directly to the defendant, the young man’s mother, Tommy, said, “You make him out to be the villain, but you’re the villain.”
With her voice choking with emotion, she later told reporters, “I just want to say that today is bittersweet. I miss him. We all miss him very much … His three boys really, really miss him. I promised him that we would fight to the end and we did.”
Deputy District Attorney Kristopher Gay noted that the prosecution would have had to prove who caused Twyman’s death if the case had gone to trial.
“In this case, there were multiple officers that fired so that would be an issue at trial,” the prosecutor told reporters, noting that there were “multiple fatal shots” from both deputies’ weapons.
The district attorney said he hopes that “holding a sheriff’s deputy accountable for his actions will bring some measure of comfort” to Twyman’s family.
“I hope this serves as a small step towards healing,” Gascón told reporters.
He said he believed that “good policing will benefit from this,” saying that the behavior of the deputies was “contrary” to their training and their department’s policies.
“It was an out-of-policy shooting and it was evidenced by the fact that he (Lyons) was fired,” the district attorney added.
In an earlier statement posted on Facebook, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said the case had been “fully investigated” by the department and that then-Sheriff Alex Villanueva “initiated an administrative review of the case which resulted in Mr. Lyons being discharged from his position of deputy sheriff on November 8, 2021…
“Sheriff Villanueva remains committed to transparently holding our personnel accountable while providing for the safety and security of the communities we serve. Our condolences to Mr. Twyman’s family for their loss,” the department’s Facebook post continued.
The other deputy was suspended for 30 days, Villanueva said.
In 2020, the county paid Twyman’s family $3.9 million to resolve a federal lawsuit stemming from the shooting.