BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — When it comes to recommendations from the California DOJ report reviewing the officer-involved shooting of 21 year old Che Zuniga Jr. in 2021, Bakersfield Assistant Police Chief Brent Stratton said many of these policies have already been updated.
- Video shows the officer-involved shooting of 21 year old Che Zuniga Jr. in 2021
- When it comes to recommendations from the California DOJ report reviewing the officer-involved shooting of 21 year old Che Zuniga Jr. in 2021, Bakersfield Assistant Police Chief Brent Stratton said many of these policies have already been updated.
“Each of the recommendations that are included in there are not necessarily reflective of where our policy is today, but are potentially reflective of where it was three years ago,” said Bakersfield Assistant Police Chief Brent Stratton.
When it comes to recommendations from the California DOJ report reviewing the officer-involved shooting of 21 year old Che Zuniga Jr. in 2021, Stratton said many of these policies have already been updated.
“On one hand, this is a separate arm of the California Department of Justice than the arm of the California Department of Justice that we work with very closely as it relates to our stipulated judgment, but we believe that because of the work that we're doing in our stipulated judgment, it's accelerated a lot of the policy development and implementation,” he said.
Back on August 7, 2021 officers were responding to a domestic argument called just after 12:30 a.m. they were initially told the man was armed with a gun inside a green Chevy pickup. Officers attempted to stop the driver, but say he took off.
WATCH THE BODY CAM VIDEO OF THE 2021 SHOOTING (WARNING IT MAY BE CONSIDERED GRAPHIC):
The truck crashed during the chase, and it was minutes later that the first officer-involved shooting was reported, but no body-worn camera was activated during the pursuit. Following the first shooting, body-worn cameras were activated and showed Zuniga Jr was hiding in a trash can. He emerged and ran directly at officers when he was shot and killed.
The report states that officers involved were all aware of the first shooting during which Zuniga fired shots at patrol cars. It also stated that officers believed he was still armed when he ran towards them.
Attorney General Rob Bonta found in the report that there was insufficient evidence to support criminal charges against the officers. However, the DOJ provided three policy recommendations, one of those: that BPD amend its body-worn camera activation policy to include vehicle pursuit.
Stratton said while their policy at the time may not have required this, it does now.
“So it is an expectation that we have that whenever our officers are going to be making contact with the public, to include vehicle stops, that their body worn camera is activated and rolling,” he said.
Stratton said now the department has invested in technology so that body-worn cameras will automatically engage during events like this.
“Two of the pieces of technology that we've invested in is one for our body worn cameras to automatically activate whenever the lights and sirens of a vehicle come on,” he said. “Another piece of technology that we've purchased and implemented is whenever a taser is activated, the body worn camera automatically comes on.”
However, there's still incidents when this technology may not come into play, like the Vineland Road crash where former officer Ricardo Robles was driving towards a pursuit and crashed into another vehicle, killing one person and injuring three others.
“I do believe that within that time frame, that's a scenario that if we had turned on our lights and sirens, that a camera should have been activated,” he said.
In that incident, it appeared Robles hadn't turned on his lights or sirens, so his camera would have needed to be activated manually.
The other recommendations surrounded muting of audio in body-worn cameras and officers discussing shootings among themselves before giving statements. You can read the full report below:
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