With jurors declaring they were deadlocked after roughly two days of deliberations, a judge Wednesday declared a mistrial in the case of a former Whittier police detective charged with assault for an on-duty shooting that left a man paralyzed just over 5 1/2 years ago.
The jury’s foreman told Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge George Lomeli that the panel was split 7-5 in favor of guilt on two of the charges and 8-4 in favor of guilt on the other two charges against Salvador Murillo.
The 44-year-old former detective is charged with two felony counts each of assault with a semiautomatic firearm and assault under the color of authority, along with allegations that he caused great bodily injury.
Murillo is due back at the downtown Los Angeles courthouse Jan. 13 for a pretrial hearing.
After the mistrial was declared, defense attorney Vicki Podberesky maintained that “Mr. Murillo is innocent of any misconduct,” and called the case “a tragedy all the way around.”
Murillo’s attorney said she believes it would be prudent for the District Attorney’s Office to realize the danger her client felt he was in during the April 30, 2020, foot pursuit of Nicholas Carrillo, but added that the defense would otherwise be prepared to retry the case.
In his closing argument last Friday, Deputy District Attorney Ryan Tracy told jurors that Murillo “used more force than was reasonable in this case” and did not have to fire four times at Carrillo, who was struck twice in the back. But Murillo’s attorney countered that her client was “rapidly making decisions” within a 21-second time frame and believed the Carrillo was going to shoot him during a foot pursuit.
Authorities subsequently determined that Carrillo was not armed with a weapon and did not have a gun inside his vehicle.
The prosecutor told jurors that the issue is whether Murillo acted in self-defense of himself or others, saying that Carrillo was running away and was unarmed when Murillo shot him twice in the back, “ruining his life” and “permanently paralyzing him.”
Murillo testified in his own defense during the week-long trial.
The former detective’s attorney reminded jurors in her closing argument about Murillo’s account of the man moving and turning his body, saying that the officer with 15 years on the job testified that he believed Carrillo was going to fire at him moments after the man “rammed” the undercover detectives’ vehicle and then fled from his own vehicle.
She said her client believed at the time that a gun was stashed in Carrillo’s waistband.
The defense lawyer noted that Murillo did not suspect that then-Whittier police Detective Cynthia Lopez was the one who had fired the first three shots he heard because they were in a “crossfire situation” with a patrol officer nearby.
Podberesky — who asked the panel to acquit her client of all four charges — called it a “lawful shooting” and said the prosecution had to prove that Murillo did not act in self-defense.
In his rebuttal argument, Deputy District Attorney Jason Quirino countered that the evidence had shown that Murillo “did not have the right to use deadly force.”
The prosecutor alleged that the defendant was “not telling you the truth” when he testified that he didn’t realize that Lopez had fired the initial series of shots because it “looks very bad for him” that Carrillo hadn’t fired any shots.
“Does that mean Mr. Carrillo is an angel? By no means,” Quirino said, while noting that people often run from the police but don’t often get shot. “He certainly shouldn’t have been shot.”
The vehicle that Carrillo was driving — which authorities said may have been used by a woman during a confrontation with a store loss prevention officer after a TV was taken — was followed into the alley by the two detectives in an unmarked vehicle, with a patrol vehicle boxing him in from the other direction.
The case against Lopez was dismissed last year after a judge found there was insufficient evidence presented against her at a hearing to determine if the case should proceed to trial.
Carrillo, 34, died earlier this year as a result of a drug overdose, the Los Angeles Times reported.