SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - The family of a Utah man who was killed by an officer last March is suing the police department for civil rights violations, claiming that the officer had no reason to chase after and shoot the man that night.
Salt Lake County prosecutors recently determined that Omar Flores, a police officer with the Unified Police Department in the Salt Lake City area, was not justified in the fatal shooting of 28-year-old Bryan Peña-Valencia.
The lawsuit, which was filed Wednesday in Utah’s U.S. District Court, claims there was no basis for the police pursuit or the use of deadly force, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.
Peña-Valencia was driving in his car the night of March 21, 2020, when Flores and another officer, Shane Scrivner, attempted to pull him over while they were investigating an unrelated matter.
The officers found him later on after he had crashed his car and ran away on foot, and they chased him into a backyard. Cornered against a fence, police alleged that Peña-Valencia then reached for something in his waistband, prompting Flores to shoot. The lawsuit contends, however, that Peña-Valencia was complying when Flores shot him.
The department said that no body-worn camera footage of the shooting is available.
“By chasing Bryan unnecessarily, Flores, through his own deliberate and reckless conduct, escalated a non-lethal situation into a lethal one in which he wrongfully used deadly force,” wrote Bob Sykes, an attorney for Peña-Valencia’s family, in the lawsuit.
Sykes also said that evidence will show Flores shot Peña-Valencia five more times after the first shot while he was on the ground, KSTU-TV reported.
The Unified Police Department previously said it is conducting an internal investigation into the shooting. The department did not immediately comment on the lawsuit Wednesday, but it previously stated that the district attorney’s review of the case “acknowledged that law enforcement confronts very real dangers and officers are expected to be able to anticipate a threat of death or serious bodily injury.”
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