Attorneys for family members of an 18-year-old man fatally shot by Santa Ana police announced Thursday they had filed a claim with the city, a precursor to a lawsuit.
Victor Lopez of Santa Ana was fatally shot in an encounter with police Jan. 28 in a parking structure at 450 Fourth St. Lopez was killed in front of his fiancee and their 1-year-old son.
Police said an officer attempted to stop him about 10:30 p.m., but he kept driving and entered the parking structure. Lopez got out of the vehicle, armed with a gun and refused commands to drop it before he was shot, police alleged.
Attorney Adante Pointer said at a news conference Thursday at his Costa Mesa the shooting was “unlawful, unnecessary and frankly an outrageous, callous death of Victor Lopez.”
Pointer said Lopez was attempting to surrender but stumbled and the gun fell out. As he was trying to get down on the ground he was shot three times in the back, Pointer alleged.
Lopez was “killed in front of his 1-year-old child who was sitting there mere feet, mere steps away from where his father was gunned down,” Pointer said.
Attorney Bryan Harrison said the family was “requesting a separate investigation be conducted by the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.” The attorneys who also asked for the body-worn camera footage from the officer and surveillance video from the parking structure.
“This is an incident that never should have occurred to an individual who was surrendering,” Harrison said. “Not even in times of war do you shoot someone during a surrender.”
Lopez’s sister, Emily Lopez, said her younger brother was “the most giving and loving person I’ve ever known.”
Lopez was “so proud” of his son, Jaden.
“He was so excited about being a father,” Emily Lopez said. “He was a young man with a baby and a future.”
Pointer read a statement from Lopez’s fiancee, Leileen Carrasco.
“I watched Victor get out of the vehicle,” she said. “I watched him fall and he tried to get up to do what they wanted him to do and then I watched the officers shoot him in the back not once but three times as he was going to the ground… I will hear those gunshots for the rest of my life, and one day I’m going to have to explain to our child why his daddy is no longer here.”
Carrasco said Victor Lopez was “not perfect, but then no one is. But he was a good father and he loved Jaden more than anything else in the world.”
The attorneys for Lopez’s family said he was not reaching for his gun, and that he had a constitutional right to own one. They also denied that he was advancing toward the officer or holding the weapon at the time.