Getting your
Trinity Audioplayer ready...Pasadena police are investigating whether an officer-on-officer shooting that seriously injured one officer in September was an ongoing problem in the department, Police Chief Gene Harris said at a city council committee meeting Wednesday, June 18.
“In the interim, we don’t know whether or not this was chronic behavior on the part of this particular team,” Harris said, “but we do know that these particular people absolutely disgraced us with this type of conduct that was put out to the public.”
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City Council members also took issue with Harris’ word choice in the critical incident video released June 10, referring to the shooting as “out-of-policy horseplay involving loaded firearms” and saying the shot was an “accidental discharge.”
The discussion at the City Council’s Public Safety Committee meeting followed the release of video that showed a Sept. 7 shooting in the department’s parking garage at 240 Ramona St., which resulted in the officer who fired his gun being “separated from the department.” After the video’s release, new evidence that pointed to “a significant issue with the officers that are involved” resulted in two other officers being placed on administrative leave pending investigation, Harris said.
In the video, one officer is seen pointing his gun at the arriving officer’s vehicle before holstering it. Moments later, the officer who was driving fires a shot off camera, which strikes his front windshield before hitting the first officer in his left shoulder, seriously injuring him.
Harris’ word choice in the video drew criticism from Pasadena Vice Mayor Jess Rivas, who argued using the term “horseplay” risked trivializing the shooting.
“It’s potentially criminal behavior … that could have gotten someone killed,” said Rivas, who also chairs the committee. “From my perspective as one councilmember, as one resident of this city, anyone who intentionally points a loaded firearm at a colleague at work should be fired, full stop. I don’t understand how we can be taken seriously as an employer if you can do that and still keep your job.”
Pasadena police and the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office are determining if anyone involved in the shooting should face criminal charges.
During the personnel investigation, police deemed the shooting horseplay because it didn’t legally qualify as an assault, Harris said. After discussing his word choice with Rivas, he said officials can rethink how they qualify the shooting in the future.
Councilmember Tyron Hampton also disagreed with Harris over his use of the term “accidental discharge” rather than negligent discharge. Based on a legal definition, Harris said he believes the officers’ actions leading to the shooting were negligent, but because the officer didn’t intend to fire his gun, it was classified as an accidental discharge.
“To me, the discharge itself is almost irrelevant,” Rivas said. “When you point a gun at someone, that is a risk of it happening. It could be accidental discharge, it could be negligent discharge, it could be an intentional discharge, but pointing a gun at someone, you only do that when you intend to destroy that target. And so the very fact that any officer ever pointed a loaded firearm at another officer, that in my mind is grounds for separation.”