By now, most know the story of Luis Gutierrez-Navarro, who on April 30, 2009, was walking home from the DMV on East Gum Avenue in Woodland, when he encountered what turned out to be three plain-clothed officers, Dale Johnson, Herman Oviedo and Hector Bautista in an unmarked Yolo County Sheriff’s Department vehicle.
What happened next is subject to dispute. However, there seems to have been an attempt to contact Mr. Gutierrez, who had no real criminal record aside from some vehicle code violations. Mr. Gutierrez, for reasons that are unclear, fled the scene, the officers pursued him, and eventually at the top of the overpass there was a final confrontation in which the officers claim he pulled a knife and he was shot and killed.
The incident has been the subject of several formal and informal investigations. The officers have been cleared of wrongdoing by several of them, however, critics of this incident have never been satisfied that there has been a truly independent investigation into what happened on that fateful day.
The family of Mr. Gutierrez have filed a civil suit, and now for the first time, the facts of the case will go before a jury. The trial is scheduled to begin on September 25 in Federal Court in Sacramento.
In their amended complaint, the plaintiffs claim, “Defendant Bautista pulled the vehicle to the curb and defendant Johnson exited the vehicle in order to confront Navarro, apparently due to the fact that he appeared to be a Hispanic male. The defendant officers failed to properly identify themselves as peace officers and without justification or probable cause, attempted to physically detain the decedent.”
The complaint continues: “Fearing for his life, the decedent turned and ran. Both Johnson and Oviedo drew their weapons. After a short pursuit on foot, defendants Johnson and Oviedo fired their weapons at decedent at least seven times as decedent was attempting to flee from the defendants. The decedent was struck and mortally wounded.”
The plaintiffs in this case assert that the officers did not properly identify themselves to Mr. Gutierrez, that he was assaulted, that he fled in fear of his life. They note that at the time of the incident Mr. Gutierrez had violated no law and that there was no probable cause for the pursuit and shooting.
They alleged violations of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the US Constitution, and Wrongful Death, among other complaints.
In their response, the defendants “deny that the sole reason they sought to speak with him was that he was a Hispanic male. Defendants contend that the officers did show badges signifying that they were law enforcement officers. Defendants admit that the decedent put his hand into his pocket and ran away from the officers, causing them to seek to detain him for further investigation. Defendants deny that there is evidence that the decedent ran in fear for his life.”
The defendants, the plaintiffs contend, “in an attempt to justify this inexcusable homicide, claim that Defendant Johnson closed on Luis and, according to Defendant Oviedo, Defendant Johnson grabbed Luis by the shoulders. Luis then stopped, twisted away and somehow reached into his pocket, pulled out and opened a folding pocketknife and attempted to slash at Defendant Johnson which caused Defendant Oviedo to fire the fatal shot. Plaintiffs contend that as a matter of law the action of Defendant Johnson constituted an unauthorized detention of his person in violation of his Constitutional rights.”
The plaintiffs maintain that the defendants had no justification for “pursuing or detaining Luis Gutierrez let alone having cause for taking his life. At their depositions, the Defendants suggested that Luis was wearing baggy pants and a T-shirt and was walking in a ‘high crime area.’ They were forced to acknowledge that they had no other information about Luis to justify their actions. In short, they had no reason to stop and question Luis, no reason to pursue him, no reason to draw their weapons, and no reason to kill him.”
The plaintiffs describe Deputy Johnson as “a muscular man with tattoos placed on his bicep and triceps,” and argue that neither of his companions heard him identify himself as a deputy to Mr. Gutierrez.
“There is no evidence except Johnson’s self-serving testimony that a proper identification was made and as a matter of law Luis did not have to talk to or stay put for Defendant Johnson even if a proper identification had been made,” the plaintiffs argue. They add: “The evidence will show that Luis was terrified and thought the same thing that the independent witness had initially assumed, to-wit: that these were bad people about to do bad things to him. He ran for his life and in so doing paid with his life.”
The plaintiffs allege: “The Defendants provoked this confrontation and their reasons for so doing are pretextual. Luis was minding his own business walking on the overpass sidewalk when a blacked out car with three (3) menacing looking men pulled up and two (2) of them exited the vehicle and Luis immediately turned and ran. At that time neither witness saw anything that the two (2) antagonists did to identify themselves as members of law enforcement and they watched these men chase Luis with drawn weapons.”
Mr. Gutierrez, they claim, became exhausted over the course of the pursuit. They note that neither witness, Viena Navarro or Lindsey Fletes, saw anything in Mr. Gutierrez’s hands.
“Even if Luis opened a pocketknife in a desperate last-ditch attempt to protect himself from two (2) armed menacing looking men, his actions were reasonable under the circumstances and were provoked by the Defendant Deputies themselves,” the attorneys for Mr. Gutierrez argue.
In 2010, activists in Yolo County helped to create an independent commission charged with investigating the shooting. The group had met a few times and uncovered additional witnesses and information.
However, when Cruz Reynoso, the former California Supreme Court Judge, and his wife were severely injured in an automobile accident late in 2010, the activities by this group ceased.
In early 2011, the Yolo County Sheriff’s Department announced that they had received a letter from the United States Department of Justice stating that the U.S. Department of Justice has concluded their investigation into the fatal shooting of Luis Gutierrez-Navarro.
In a letter dated February 4, 2011, the U.S. Department of Justice stated, “After careful consideration, we concluded that the evidence does not establish a prosecutable violation of the federal criminal civil rights statutes. Accordingly, we have closed our investigation.”
The U.S. Department of Justice confirms findings on investigations previously conducted by the Woodland Police Department and the Yolo County District Attorney’s Office, which was also supported by the California Attorney General, according to the release from Sergeant Lance Faille.
The letter itself from the agency reveals little more than they do not believe the evidence rises to a prosecutable violation under federal law.
Defenders of the actions by the sheriff’s deputies point to toxicology reports that show that Mr. Gutierrez had a considerable amount of meth in his system, evidence of gang membership and the knife.
While the officers involved in the investigation claim that Mr. Gutierrez was a Sureño, based on faded tattoos and affiliation, there is considerable evidence that at least disputes these claims.
Given the fact that the tattoo was reportedly faint, it is unclear that Mr. Gutierrez was a current member of a gang.
At the time of his death, Luis Gutierrez was 26 years old. However, his criminal record consisted of three criminal cases involving the violation of Vehicle Code Section 14601, which is driving without a valid license, two of them from 2008 and one from 2009.
Between 2004 and 2009, there were 15 contacts between law enforcement and Luis Gutierrez. There were other contacts that were identified but not verified. These include traffic stops, pedestrian contacts, vehicle code citations and a warrant arrest.
The DA’s report tells us, “In the 15 verified contacts prior to April 30, 2009, there were no indications of any issues, conflicts, or confrontations between Navarro and officers. There is no record or indication of Navarro engaging in any type of resisting or assaultive behavior toward law enforcement or of Navarro being under the influence of a controlled substance.”
While the charge of gang membership might provide a motive, the fact that Mr. Gutierrez had numerous contacts with law enforcement with no reported problems should at least lead us to question the relevance of the information.
The toxicology reports that they found high levels of methamphetamine and amphetamine in Luis Gutierrez’s system. If that is accurate, we could probably conclude that he took an illicit dose, as the autopsy report does. We do not know, of course, when he would have taken the dose and at what stage the encounter took place.
But we also have other evidence that leads us to at least question this finding. We have two eyewitnesses whom Mr. Gutierrez spent considerable time with, an insurance agent and a DMV employee, who report that Mr. Gutierrez was acting normal, he was able to accurately take a driving exam and fill out his paperwork. The insurance agent, in particular, reported to the Independent Civil Rights Commission that she observed him spend 20 minutes filling out insurance forms without the kind of fidgeting associated generally with high levels of meth use. She also mentioned that she was very familiar with the signs of meth use and Mr. Gutierrez did not appear to show any signs of it.
Attorneys argue, “The sole reasons given by the Defendants for accosting Luis were his physical appearance and the alleged ‘high crime area.’ There was nothing about his appearance or actions before they accosted him that gave the Defendants any reason to believe that he was under the influence of any foreign substance.”
Thus, they contend, “As such, post-mortem methamphetamine levels are completely irrelevant because the Defendants had no knowledge or suspicion of any such condition at the time they precipitated this tragedy.”
Importantly, the plaintiffs argue: “The Defendants themselves testified that Luis did not appear to be under the influence of any controlled substance at the time they first confronted him.”
We also know that with a pretty sizable history of encounters with the police, he had no record of being under the influence of a controlled substance. These reports should at least caution us before concluding definitively that he was high.
The knife that the sheriff’s deputies report is obviously the most critical piece of evidence.
Two of the sheriff’s deputies claim that he pulled a knife on them. However, no other witness reports to having seen a knife.
“The DOJ/BFS Latent Print Program examined the submitted knife. No identifiable latent prints were developed,” read the report. It continued, “Department of Justice Senior Criminalist Shawn Kacer conducted DNA analysis on a swab taken from the knife. He completed his report on September 3, 2009. He analyzed the DNA on the knife and compared it to a reference sample of DNA from Luis Gutierrez Navarro. He concluded that it is likely Navarro is the source of the DNA detected on the knife.”
However, there were no identified fingerprints on the knife.
The plaintiffs, further, contend, “Forensic examination of the knife showed no fingerprints, but allegedly some degraded skin cells which gave a partial DNA result which could not be ‘matched’ to Luis, but only proved that Luis could not be excluded from that portion of the population which could have handled the knife.”
They add, “One would wonder how Luis could turn, draw a pocketknife, open the pocketknife and swipe at Defendant Johnson (leaving no fingerprints) before Oviedo and Johnson could discharge their drawn weapons.”
Attorneys for Mr. Gutierrez’s family contend that Mr. Gutierrez did not have a knife, “they never knew him to carry a knife,” and none of his six family members living together in a small house ever saw him with a knife.
They add, “However, it is not a crime to carry a pocketknife; millions of us do so. Also, it is not a crime to defend oneself against a perceived deadly attack. Thus, if Luis did attempt to use a knife in a last ditch attempt to fight off his attackers, he had every legal right to do so.”
This case will largely, perhaps, come down to what new witnesses the plaintiffs have been able to discover in the two years since the last public hearing on this matter.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
“The incident has been the subject of several formal and informal investigations. The officers have been cleared of wrongdoing by several of them,…”
“In a letter dated February 4, 2011, the U.S. Department of Justice stated “After careful consideration, we concluded that the evidence does not establish a prosecutable violation of the federal criminal civil rights statutes.”
The DOJ didn’t really clear them. By the way, this was the same standard DOJ recently used for not prosecuting the CIA in the deaths of tortured prisoners.
Hopefully the community will wake up to what is happening here concerning the police. There is a major problem when you can be pulled over, chased down and shot to death for no apparent reason and it’s all ok with the legal system.
Hopefully now we will learn the truth – though I’m skeptical.
This case has been a long time coming, and I will be looking forward to any information you can share that comes into the court trial.
I feel like much of what we have read about this trial does not make a lot of sense.
“Hopefully the community will wake up to what is happening here concerning the police. There is a major problem when you can be pulled over, chased down and shot to death for no apparent reason and it’s all ok with the legal system.”
I agree. Good thing that didn’t happen here. Pulling a knife and trying to stab a deputy is a little more that being shot for nothing.
[quote]Hopefully the community will wake up to what is happening here concerning the police. There is a major problem when you can be pulled over, chased down and shot to death for no apparent reason and it’s all ok with the legal system.”
I agree. Good thing that didn’t happen here. Pulling a knife and trying to stab a deputy is a little more that being shot for nothing.[/quote]
I cannot help but wonder how this would have played out in a “stand your ground” state. You are simply walking down the street. You perceive yourself as under attack, and for the sake of argument, do not realize that the attackers are police. You first try to run, and then realizing you cannot escape, attempt to defend yourself with the only weapon you have….a pocket knife against guns. Just asking for people’s thoughts about this ? Did the offense of walking down the wrong street really warrant a chase ending in a death ? Is this really the mission of the police ?
Some of you seem to be buying the story about the knife but as David reported in an earlier piece no witness saw a knife. This case always depended on the presence of a knife in the hand of the victim. It still does depend on that point. We will see what the jury decides if it isn’t settled before hand.
[quote]Some of you seem to be buying the story about the knife but as David reported in an earlier piece no witness saw a knife. This case always depended on the presence of a knife in the hand of the victim. It still does depend on that point. We will see what the jury decides if it isn’t settled before hand.[/quote]
The only “witness” to the incident was driving past the incident and appears to have watched the altercation through a rear view mirror.
Just because a knife wasn’t seen doesn’t mean the knife wasn’t there. The DNA testing on the knife said Navarro was a likely match.
“Just because a knife wasn’t seen doesn’t mean the knife wasn’t there. The DNA testing on the knife said Navarro was a likely match.”
According to the plaintiff attorneys – take with grain of salt – the DNA was not a match, only couldn’t be excluded. That creates a large universe of doubt there. Again, I’m not going to say they are correct here, only that this is what they are claiming.
There also appear to be more than one witness who claim not to see a knife – is this true? We’ll see I guess.
If there is another witness they were not interviewed during the real investigation. It would not surprise me if the plaintiffs attorney’s [i]produce[/i] a witness.
As I understand it, there were a couple of witnesses that were not interviewed by public investigators who later came forward and talked to private investigators.
So the witness who witnessed the event but didn’t witness the knife didn’t witness the other witnesses who a private investigator found. If the witness who witnessed the event didn’t witness these other witnesses how is the witness supposed to witness a knife.
Why wouldn’t the private investigators encourage these new found witnesses to talk to the folks with actual authority and the ability to come to a recognizable finding?
Like I said, I wouldn’t be surprised if the plaintiffs attorneys [i]produce[/i] a witness.
I have a feeling that the civil trial wont be as interesting as the Reynoso gatherings.