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1. First Day, Body-Cam Footage
“Oh shit!” gasped APD Officer German Alvarez to himself, just as the audio kicked in on his hastily activated body camera. “Oh fuck! Oh shit!” He had just shot some young guy right in the forehead, probably killed him, out of pure fearful reflex. What now? He quickly re-holstered his Glock 45, hit 998 on his police radio (officer-involved shooting), rushed to the trunk for his first aid kit, and desperately tried to stop the bleeding. “Oh fuck!” How did this even happen?
By now his buddies began to arrive, first his “partner” Robert Benavides – they drove separate cars, but were considered partners and were never far apart. “Did this guy have a gun? A weapon?” “No! He – he threw sand at me!” “He what?”
Alvarez wiped more sand off his face and stood shivering in the cold night as his colleagues tended to the dying 22-year-old Gustavo Najera. A female officer gave Alvarez a bottle of water, and eventually another cop walked by and turned off Alvarez’ body-cam which was still filming.
It’s hard to tell on camera what came first – the sand flies and Alvarez’ gun flashes at the same moment. What happened just before the camera went on we have only Alvarez’ word for: Najera was approaching the squad car from the left, his LED flashlight held in the left hand trained steadily at the cop and his right hand in the pocket of his oversized black sweater. (It was cold, remember.) Alvarez was sitting nervously in his squad car with his Glock clutched on his lap in his right hand, and rolled down his window with his left as Najera continued forward. “You gotta go!” said the cop. “Why?” responded the young man. “Park’s closed!” answered the cop. And “I hate cops!” was the young man’s [alleged] last words as he moved closer, flinging sand, and fell to the ground with a fatal gunshot wound to the head. [Update: On the body-cam recording you can hear Alvarez telling his buddies, “He said he didn’t like cops,” which is a little less scary than what he testified to afterward.]
Well, obviously “the poor officer feared for his life,” not knowing what was in Najera’s right hand, said the DA as always in 2016, and Anaheim attorney Moses Johnson said the same yesterday, at the family’s civil trial, as Officer Alvarez sat big, tall and miserable-looking, feet away from Gustavo’s grieving Mexican parents. But the plaintiffs’ attorney Arnoldo Casillas wants the jury rather to think about how the hell Alvarez GOT into that situation – being so close to an apparently “irrational suspect” at night that panic kicks in, and killing?
“And you may say to yourself,
well,
how did I get here?”
Just a few minutes earlier, Alvarez, who’d been with the APD 14 years, had driven into central Anaheim’s Sage Park to roust any homeless folks who might be hanging out there, as he’d done countless times before. Anaheim homedwellers don’t like the homeless sleeping in their parks, and there is an anti-camping ordinance and 10:30 curfew (not that there’s anywhere else for them to go.) If Alvarez had run into any loiterers he would have told them to leave, but the park looked empty. It was a little after midnight, but the park was very well lit. Alvarez cruised through the park slowly, down the wide main sidewalk, with his headlights on, listening to sports talk radio.
Halfway through the park, not seeing anyone, he thought he’d slip out the back entrance as he often did, but it was chained, so he continued to circle back to where he came from. (Just think – if that entrance hadn’t been chained, we wouldn’t be having this trial, or this conversation, and Gustavo Najera would be 24 now.)
Then, about 20-25 yards away, he did see a figure in a black oversized sweater, walking toward him with right hand in pocket and a flashlight in his left hand. The figure raised his LED flashlight and shone it at Alvarez. Alvarez continued driving slowly forward toward this mysterious figure, and slowly drew his Glock, holding it in his lap with his right hand as he drove closer and closer.
“WAIT!” says Arnoldo the lawyer. What was Alvarez thinking? The fact this guy was shining a flashlight at him and walking toward him was a huge red flag that this was an “irrational suspect,” and there is specific training regarding irrational suspects. Arnoldo calls our attention to Exhibit 1, Training Bulletin #15-15, given and drilled in to all APD officers a year earlier in 2015. KEEP YOUR DISTANCE. “DISTANCE EQUALS TIME EQUALS OPTIONS!” All of Alvarez’ training should have told him to stay put and evaluate the situation. But he just kept moving closer, hand on his gun, and Gustavo kept moving closer, hand on his flashlight.
The closer Alvarez got, the more he limited his options. A policeman – or anyone – sitting in a car right near somebody they think could be armed is a sitting duck. And when Alvarez decided to pull out his gun and hold it in his right hand, he ruled out three much more sensible things he could have done with that hand, while keeping his distance:
- Shine his spotlights on Gustavo, blinding HIM;
- talk to him through his public address system;
- or call Benavides for back up.
Pero no, Alvarez just kept moving closer, and so did Gustavo. “It was just like Officer Alvarez took Training Bulletin #15-15, crumpled it up and threw it out!” exclaimed Arnoldo to the jury, crumpling and throwing it himself for emphasis.
And that’s why this tragic killing was unnecessary, and a nearly inevitable result of APD Officer German Alvarez not following his training but behaving like a cowboy. Needless to say, Gustavo Najera was unarmed. His friends remember the 22-year-old as an artistic, eccentric and sometimes troubled young man. They wrote this song about him after the killing (which turned out to be the first of four APD killings in 2016):
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2. Days 2-4 of the Trial (May 1-3)
First: as I mentioned above, reptilian Anaheim attorney Moses Johnson (right) is back from his battle with cancer, back doing … wait. I almost said “back doing what he does best, the smearing of victims.” Pero no – he’s back but being KEPT from what he most likes doing, the smearing of victims.
Here’s what I mean: First opportunity when the jury was out of the room, and in anticipation of the coroner’s testimony, Moses practically begged Judge Josephine Staton to let him discuss Gustavo’s “toxicology.” “Just a little bit, your honor?” he pleaded. And Judge Josephine said no dice. Irrelevant, not allowed.
And it just so happened that Genevieve Huizar, the mother of the late Manuel Diaz, was in the room, so at that moment I congratulated her. Because it was a direct result of her successful appeal of her own case, all the way to the SUPREME COURT exactly a year before, that lawyers like Moses can no longer try to justify their clients’ killings by trashing the victims with irrelevant tales of their past, or of their possible substance abuse.
I really don’t know if Gustavo’s unusual behavior was a result of just being weird, or on some substance, or upset about something. None of those things were known to the officer, none of them justified his killing, and none of them made his life worth less.
Still, undeterred, Moses did his best to slip it into his closing statement: “There is no evidence, THAT THE JURY HAS HEARD, that Mr. Najera was HIGH on something.” Arnoldo immediately objected and Judge Josephine sternly instructed the jury to ignore Moses’ remark.
We could smell the unmistakable scent of desperation as Moses, denied his usual tools, felt the case slipping from his grasp. Especially when he shouted out, “You know what I believe Mr. Najera’s plan was? I believe he intended to BLIND Officer Alvarez with that sand, so he could grab his gun and KILL him, because he HATED cops so much!” This sudden, over-the-top fantasy left the courtroom stunned.
And it was a probably unwise reminder to the jury of the unreliability of Alvarez’ testimony: The fact that he testified Gustavo yelled “I hate cops!” while throwing sand, but was caught by his own body-cam mere moments after the murder stammering to a colleague, “He – he said he didn’t like cops!” was just one of the inconsistencies nobody could help but notice.
Germán (pronounced “Hermán”) Alvarez is one of those people about whom other people say “What a piece of work.” 6’3″, 250 pounds, severe-looking and supremely arrogant on the stand, he is very well educated. Starting out as a helicopter mechanic in the Marine reserves and serving in Iraq in 2004-5, he put himself through the police academy on his return and joined the APD at 24, also receiving a BA in criminal justice at Cal State Fullerton and a Master’s in organizational management at Chapman.
But for all his erudition he took great pride in playing DUMB on the witness stand, feigning to not comprehend many of Arnoldo’s simplest questions. This was part of a two-prong delaying attack from him and Moses, the latter of whom “objected” with the regularity of a troublesome hiccup, and was nearly always overruled, but still managed to eat up much of the plaintiff’s time.
Arnoldo established early on that Alvarez had admitted in deposition to rarely wearing his seatbelt in his vehicle, and began to establish a pattern of his general disregard for rules. If he thought, from 20-25 yards away, that Gustavo looked dangerous enough for him to pull out his Glock, why did he not also switch on his bodycam at the same moment – why wait until a couple seconds before he fired? (For one thing, we’d know what was REALLY said between the two.) “When do you generally turn on your bodycam?” “Whenever I’m about to have an interaction with the public.” “So… you would switch it on when you’re making a traffic stop, for example when you’re pulling someone over for not wearing a seatbelt?” “…Yes.”
As Arnoldo pointed out, after Alvarez shot blindly at Gustavo he didn’t behave like he had just wounded a man he thought could be armed. He re-holstered his Glock, radio’d for backup, and went to administer first aid without even checking if the suspect was conscious and dangerous. But the biggest screwup, when the die was cast, was back at 25 yards when Alvarez deemed the suspect dangerous enough to draw his gun, but JUST KEPT MOVING FORWARD. He actually admitted on stand, “I had reached the point of no return.” And through nobody’s fault but his own. Training Bulletin #15-15, “keep your distance especially when dealing with irrational suspects,” was just ONE MORE RULE that this policeman ignores.
There was a moment in Moses’ closing statement where, while lamenting the damage being done here to this “model officer’s” reputation, his voice cracked a little and he paused. I really thought Moses was thirsty or ill or something. I couldn’t believe it when both Mark Daniels and Arnoldo explained to me – this was Moses Johnson’s sixth-rate attempt to appear to be CHOKING UP, over his client’s sullied name.
This drove Arnoldo Casillas to launch furiously into his final rebuttal, of which I remember some: “Yes, we should ALL be crying! Welcome to Anaheim, folks, WE DON’T FOLLOW THE RULES HERE. When they blow it they’ll make up stories, and then shed crocodile tears over the ‘character’ of the guy who blew it. They lie, they exaggerate, they play stupid. Mr. Johnson told you all what he THINKS was in Mr. Najera’s mind, well let me tell you what I believe Officer Alvarez was doing with his left hand [which you couldn’t see on camera] as his elbow rested out the door – I believe he was BECKONING MR. NAJERA OVER, while he held a gun in his right hand knowing he was likely to shoot him.
“You can’t let Mr Alvarez be a ‘model police officer.’ We are ALL in serious trouble if Mr. Alvarez is a model police officer. You can NOT let that happen. You have to be STRONG, to find a police officer in the wrong. We pledged allegiance to the flag this morning, to liberty and to justice for all, and you all must be STRONG to live up to that pledge. Otherwise, we should all be crying.”,
The jury has been deliberating since Thursday before noon, on whether Alvarez used unreasonable or excessive force, whether he was negligent before the killing, and whether these factors led to Gustavo’s death. Later they will decide on an award amount. The Orange Juice Blog will tell you the results as soon as we know. — Friday 10:44 am
*
3. Verdict: No, and No.
It did take the seven-member jury a long time – from 11am Thursday to around 2:30 or 3 Friday – to come up with their unanimous verdict: No and No. No on whether Alvarez used excessive or unreasonable force on Gustavo Najera, and no on whether he was guilty of negligence leading to Gustavo’s death. No justice. No peace.
We were hopeful. The public consciousness about police killings has been moving in the right direction, but this was not a decision that moves us forward. The jury consisted of six women (3 Asian, 2 white, 1 apparently Latina) who chose as their foreman their one male, a hulking blond football player Alvarez’ size, with a Michael Rapaport face (left.) Whatever the qualms of some of them, they eventually all agreed that Alvarez had done nothing (important) wrong when getting closer and closer to the strangely-behaving Gustavo until he was so close that, if startled as he was, he would see no choice but to KILL him. And no problem with his contradictory testimony.
A sad day.
Next week, let’s start fighting for Shirley Weber’s bill AB-931, which changes the criterion for justifying a police killing from “reasonable” concern to “necessary.”
Vern out.
Vern: this is riveting writing, the like of which would never come into existence but for your efforts and work. No press coverage will show what you’ve shown here; no other reports will even try to link this tragic incident to a broader, compelling social problem that Anaheim must confront.
Anyone who attacks you for holding a light up to the police just doesn’t get what it is that makes America a country worth living in, and the crucial role that has always been played by well-meaning citizens who paid attention.
But…well, no but. That’s enough for now from me.
Welcome to the club, Donovan, our creepy anonymous stalkers over at the Liberal OC are now obsessed with YOU, insisting you must be some kinda fake person!
http://www.theliberaloc.com/2018/04/30/ocvmp-foundation-gets-600k-from-heritage-fields-aka-five-point-for-signage/comment-page-1/#comment-268899
First “Henry Paul Lipton” who is really the hatemongering HB rightwinger Chuck Johnson (currently under a restraining order for his violent threats and stalking against Gina Clayton-Tarvin):
“John Horner has a colleague in the suddenly “verbose” Donovan next door. For a gang that that throw stones, they don’t catch well.” (whatever the hell that’s sposta mean, but “John Horner” is apparently a fake identity somebody else was using)
And then nobody knows who “David Vasquez” really is, but he does have the distinction of boasting that he had photos of my wife’s slain son with a gun, which turned out to be Jay-Z with Beyonce. THIS brilliant asshole is sure that you are really our friend Mark Daniels (who actually has a unique writing style MUCH different from you, as well as no reason to conceal his identity):
“I am told “Donovan” is the brain damaged activist Mark Daniels. I don’t know the details of his injury, but watching his inability to string two sentences together at council and his retention of “Crazy Greg” is pretty clear evidence of his handicap…Diamond has a history of manipulating the feeble (Cynthia Ward, Brian Chachua, Vern Nelson etc…)…Donovan is to Mark Daniels what John Horner is to Mike Fox!”
Again, welcome to the club – they hate us because they ain’t us! And thank you for the kind words.
“For a gang that that throw stones, they don’t catch well.”
Most likely Business of Baseball-speak.
“I am told “Donovan” is the brain damaged activist Mark Daniels.”
LOOOOOOL! Bring it.
That said, I’ll defend Phil Janowicz. I didn’t get to know him that well, but liked what I saw in him. I respect a decision to withdraw reached at a time it will do most good. As for the crowd at ‘the liberal’…someone over there does indeed appear brain damaged, or at least, susceptible to listening to such people.
I’m sitting here with Mark right now … “Huh? Why me?”
I suppose I ought to meet, Mark, and yourself, Vern. If we showed up at some public meeting, they’d become rather confused. That said, they might conclude that you or Mark had hired an actor to impersonate a shill – might even claim you didn’t spend enough money to secure decent talent.
Time to start rehearsing “Sunshine Superman” and “Mellow Yellow.”
People at first thought Ricardo Toro was fake too, because his name sounds kinda funny, until everybody met him. But that was Gustavo and Gabriel from the Weekly who thought he was a “sock puppet.”
LOL. I threw a ‘how do you do’ introduction over there, just to see what might happen. If they actually show civility and decency (as many here have shown), I’ll use my real email as well. Not trying to be shy, but some folks merit engaging with, others are a waste of time. I have made up my mind about you, but not them.
First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is.
Dude. You TOUCHED THE PINK TOAD. Before I could stop you. I feel terrible.
And as for singing, the ‘real’ Donovan is a tenor. I’m a baritone, envious of even Leonard Cohen’s barely 6-note vocal range, having mastered perhaps 3 1/2 notes myself.
Well, I’ve had my warts, and the deadly toads are in South America…and the last time someone brought a frivolous defamation claim against a friend of mine, the fool who brought it wound up making his second bankruptcy filing to avoid paying my fees. I’ve heard of bear baiting, but never toad baiting…hmmm…
Besides, if someone is spreading rumors about me, I’d at least like to know if I should be insulted or flattered by the claim I’m impersonating someone.
Man don’t mess with the Pink Toad’s lawyer. She has a lot of testicular fortitude in her purse.
If you’re talking about Melissa Fox, erase “lawyer” and substitute in “antagonist.” She’s not of the Agran body and has therefore become a public enemy in Chumleyland.
I imagine he’s thinking of Crazy Lenore.
WHAT??? You’re NOT the singer? I feel cheated.
Perhaps that’s retaliation for assessing the claim that a lawyer whose law license is suspended shouldn’t be eligible for DA.
Truth be told, I looked over the LiberalOC for quite a while, trying to find which bloggers are at least trying to be conscientious observers of their community, and which are vindictive hacks. I think I chose wisely.
Dude, don’t touch the pink toad (Vern can explain).
So much for bloodthirsty birdbrain Lucille Kring’s “saved us the cost of a trial!” response to summary executions. Look — the kid’s dead, and there’s still a trial!
Not even using the PA to tell him to lie flat on his stomach on the ground with his hands behind his back or whatever? That, in it’s way, is impressive. I’m not even a cop, but I think I would have thought to do that before shooting him in the head….
I imagine that IS Lucille’s general philosophy, but just to be clear, she said that in 2014 about Robert Moreno, NOT two years later about unarmed Gustavo Najera.
https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/resign-lucille-kring-anaheim-council-police-shooting-trial-252562071.html
Even if you don’t have the two incidents mixed up, it’s easy for the average reader to do so, with so fuckin many.
I don’t have the supervisorial candidate’s statements mixed up, but I welcome your clarification for the reasons stated.
I’m suspending judgment until the police investigation is done. Or until Wordsmith gives it a thumbs up.
Not everybody can detect your subtle sarcasm, David.
thank you…….. after APD kill me….. will you write up an article about how they did it???
If you think that this is so likely, Bryan, why do you remain in Anaheim? I can make an argument for it — I’ve gotten death threats for my work in politics, although not (that I know of) from police — but most people would consider relocating. Have you spoken to Vern about telling your story here — in concentrated form?
Bryan: I hope APD do not kill you. The ONLY time I’ve witnessed the police in a potential live fire incident was in my own neighborhood, during an incident in which I watched a man screaming at night, “Just shoot me! F@cking shoot me already!” – and they didn’t.
As it unfolded, several impressions took hold:
(1) They sent a dozen officers, more than a half dozen cars, and did it quite fast.
(2) With all the dogs barking on my normally quiet neighborhood, why are there only like 5 or 6 people coming out to see the commotion? This could be a live shooting incident. Someone ought to bear witness. Most are immigrants, largely Asian and Latino, who stayed hidden if they came out at all.
(3) I hope that this ends quietly. Those neighbors from that house might be the folks who brought my silly dog back to me when she ran off once. They seemed nice people.
(4) Who knew there were so many blonde female police officers in Anaheim?
As it looked to have been handled properly, I was reassured about the quality of APD in general (at least in incidents when a lot of cops show up). Then I read further, and see a lot that concerns me.
Daron Wyatt said that the cop shot first, then began recording…… the cop had plenty of time to start recording….
Well, as so often, Daron said wrong. You can see the gun go off a few seconds into the film.
Vern, I mention in another post about one of your masterpieces.This one ranks high up in terms of writing style, very engaging.
Donovan,
Welcome to the Pink Toad sacrifice. Get used to Fake Vasquez’s character assassination and absurd claims, and to Dan Chmielewski using “free speech” cover to allow even White Supremacists in his blog.
Thank you Vern for another informative article. I just find it a big tragedy. I just seems like a complete lack of training by APD. It is no small thing to kill a unarmed person. And thank you Mark Daniels for your Civic Involvement.
The sad day was the day he died; this is sad because a family didn’t get justice. But it will not be quite so sad, if as a result, bulletin 15-15 is honored as written, rather than as a reminder when ignored, and it now seems there is a strong need for increasing the standards from “reasonable concern” to “necessary.”
I am curious if the jury really grasped the burdens here. I’m sure the judge told them, but suspect they perceived themselves of “convicting” Alvarez, and finding a reasonable doubt, ruled accordingly, even if that’s not the standard here. We’ll never see into that black box, but I wonder…
This article is so beyond dumb. That man you are speaking of, the hulky football player is my husband and your facts are beyond wrong. Yawn.
One word for you all. METH.
Forget if the gate was locked or unlocked, maybe focus on don’t go out in the middle of the night on meth messing with cops with guns. Just saying.
Lastly my husband doesn’t play football. But yes he is hunky or wait hulky. Great writing.
Go to sleep, juror wife.
What would you say the odds are that this is being written by someone working for a Police Officers Association (if not department itself), Vern?
Do we have a boilerplate article we can post explaining why, due to a verified history of abuses, we do not take anonymous attacks on the dead as having been on meth (or whatever the allegation is) at face value? It’s too easy, too convenient, too hard to rebut and too aimed at people’s worst and most racist instincts. No wonder it’s the go-to move. It’s a real shame, too, because I would like to be able to consider it in those cases where it is true, but these irresponsible loose allegations makes it impossible.
My problem is how this juror wife gets the idea that there was any drug use involved, when that testimony was disqualified from the trial.
Whoa! Write the judge!
Yes Greg I am sure the juddge has nothing better to do that hear from a bunch of internet trolls. You are all pretty quick to want to blame this cop but next time you need the police they will be there for you, putting their
lives on the line, doing the best they can with bad situations. If you run up to my house with your hand in your pocket screaming at me in the middle of the night you will also be shot in the face. The police also have a right to protect themselves. I’m sorry you fell for the “he threw sand in your face” argument which was said over and over and over to the point of vomit. The facts are the guy was acting irrational and placed himself in a bad situation, the cop had a few seconds to decide if he wanted to risk his life in hopes it was what …. sand? Nope. Sorry. Regardless if they allowed into court the toxicology reports, FACT he was on METH, confronting cops, in the dark of night acting a fool.
You play with people with guns you can actually loose your life. But by all means keep talking about cop killers. It’s such a cheap argument in this case. Not all cops are killers some are just trying to do their job in a crazy world. I am the only person on here that got to hear all the facts and trust me, he didn’t shoot a kid in the face for fun.
Sorry wifey, this story sounds like:
1) An incompetent cop, or;
2) An execution.
And as for cops coming when we need them, isn’t that what they are sworn and very well compensated to do?
Yeah, what’s with this un-American attitude that we have to kiss their butts and never criticize them, in the hopes that in the sheer kindness of their hearts they will deign to be there when we need them?
“Wifey,” you weren’t on the jury yourself, so would you please detail exactly WHEN Hubby told you WHICH secret deliberations from the jury? I’m not normally keen on hearing from Internet trolls myself, but in this case I’ll make an exception.
You don’t have to worry about any of running up to your house with a hand in our pocket screaming at you in the middle of the night screaming at you — but has it ever occurred to you that if we were willing to do THAT then we also might not be deterred from the laws against impersonating a cop? So I think that you just asserted your willingness to shoot a cop in the face — unless you presume that anyone dressed as a cop must be an OJB writer — as well as teenagers trying to escape rapists, parents trying to find someone to call the cops because some home invader stole their cell phones and kidnapped their kids, and Good Samaritans trying to notify you that your house is on fire.
But the prospect of shooting someone — ANYONE — in the face without suffering consequences just engorges your loins, doesn’t it? No wonder you write under a pseudonym, sir.
BTW since getting all suspicious about “how did this fine couple know about the meth” I discovered that the Register included that detail in their story the day before her comment.