Farmworker’s fatal shooting shows need for police training, Justice Department says

Reporting from Seattle  —  When a migrant farmworker was shot dead by police last year on the streets of this small town in eastern Washington, it widened the political fissures in the agricultural community.

It also caught the attention of the U.S. Department of Justice, which now says the shooting death of Antonio Zambrano-Montes should stand as a blueprint for how far police departments across America still have to go to learn better ways of heading off potentially lethal confrontations.

In an 83-page report on the Feb. 10, 2015 shooting of the 35-year-old orchard worker, the federal government concluded that the incident underscores the urgent need for additional training and more diverse police forces. In the case of Pasco, Wash., the report said police in the small city also need training on how to deal with the mentally ill.

“It’s a small victory,” Benjamin Crump, one of the attorneys representing Zambrano-Montes’ family, said. The findings, made public Monday, support some of the claims made in a lawsuit brought by the family against the city of Pasco, three officers and the police chief.

Pasco, a city of 68,000 surrounded by orchards and farmlands at the confluence of the Columbia and Snake rivers, is 55% Latino, though its police force doesn’t reflect that. Of the 79 officers in the department, 14 are Latino and only one is female. This month, the city responded to an ACLU lawsuit by conceding that the city’s at-large system for electing council members violates the federal Voting Rights Act and effectively prevents minorities from winning office. Reforms were promised.

Zambrano-Montes’ death exacerbated tensions in the city, leading to street protests and a push for a public coroner’s inquest, a long-delayed hearing that likely won’t unfold until fall.

A Mexican immigrant who was in the country illegally, Zambrano-Montes had a history of mental illness and was high on methamphetamine when he began throwing rocks at police officers from the street. The subsequent scene of him being chased by three officers along a busy street was videotaped by several passersby.

The farmworker was apparently wounded by one of five shots fired at him while he ran. When he stopped, turned, and held out his hands in what Crumb contends was a gesture of surrender, three officers fired a dozen rounds from close range, striking him five times. The DOJ report was not critical of the officers’ decision to fire, other than to say the outcome showed a need for improved training and hiring methods.

A February review by the American Civil Liberties Union had a more critical take, calling the department’s practices “woefully outdated.”

Pasco police policies, it found, “do not provide guidance about de-escalation nor adequate details to guide officers on when and how to decrease the use of force. Such guidelines are essential to avoid officers responding based on impulse, anger or adrenaline.”

Pasco Police Chief Bob Metzger says his department has already made important changes, including hiring more bilingual officers and improving training procedures. He and other city officials said they would like to implement other changes and move on from the Zambrano-Montes shooting. But obstacles remain, including the inquest and the lawsuit brought by Zambrano-Montes’ mother, father, wife and two children.

Crump, a Florida attorney who is co-counsel with Seattle attorney Charles Herrmann, said the “lack of training, supervision, discipline, the need for sensitivity training — that’s all confirmed in this [DOJ report] and the earlier reviews.”

The suit offers a narrative for how the midday incident played out:

The first officer on the scene was Adrian Alaniz, who reported that Zambrano-Montes appeared to be high on drugs and was clutching a rock in each hand.

“Drop the rocks!” the officer ordered.

Instead, Zambrano-Montes responded by shuffling towards Alaniz, who spoke only rudimentary Spanish. “No, no, mátame, mátame,” he said to the officer. No, no, kill me, kill me. He said the same thing several times.

The suit contends than rather than let the situation cool down, Alaniz and then other arriving officers took aggressive steps, eventually firing a Taser.

Zambrano-Montes, seemingly unaffected, threw another rock. At least two of the three officers — Alaniz, Ryan Flanagan and Adam Wright — fired as the man tossed another rock, the suit claims.

One bullet struck Zambrano-Montes’ arm and lodged in his chest as he turned and ran, the suit alleges. Flanagan fired three shots as Zambrano-Montes ran across a busy intersection, one of the slugs hitting a soda machine at a nearby gas station.

“After trotting several yards bleeding from the wound in his right arm and the bullet in his chest, he turned to surrender while raising both his hands,” the suit says.

The three officers, at close range, standing abreast, fired 12 more rounds, one bullet hitting Zambrano-Montes’ jaw and severing his carotid artery. The officers then handcuffed him, attorneys claim in the suit.

After reviewing the case, and separate from its report, the DOJ said it would not charge any of the officers for their actions. The local Franklin County prosecutor’s office reached the same conclusion.

Spokane’s U.S. Atty. Michael C. Ormsby said the evidence was insufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the officers “acted with the requisite criminal intent, that is, willfully with a bad purpose to violate the law.”

The lawsuit is likely to go to trial in 2017.

Anderson is a special correspondent