For the primary time in almost two years, the general public heard the voice of a San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputy plead together with his fellow officers to cease taking pictures at a 15-year-old woman on the aspect of a California freeway in broad daylight.
The audio was launched greater than 500 days after a sheriff’s deputy fatally shot Savannah Graziano. The teenager had been kidnapped the day earlier than by her father, Anthony Graziano, who shot and killed Tracy Martinez — Savannah’s mom and his estranged spouse — in Fontana throughout a home dispute close to Cypress Elementary College.
Each Anthony and Savannah Graziano have been killed on Sept. 27, 2022, and officers have offered little details about their deaths.
Video and audio launched Friday to impartial journalist Joey Scott present the occasions main as much as a violent shootout on the 15 Freeway and confirm that the teenager was shot and killed by a sheriff’s deputy. In addition they present that San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus mischaracterized necessary points of the case in his public feedback within the aftermath of Savannah’s taking pictures — mischaracterizations that the division by no means sought to appropriate.
The Sheriff’s Division declined any follow-up questions concerning the launch of knowledge within the Graziano case, which is below investigation by the California Division of Justice.
“My hope is that this video will likely be watched in its entirety and supply perception into the unlucky occasions that unfolded that day,” Dicus stated in reference to the incident video launched by his division Friday. “There was hypothesis and misrepresentations about this case, and I’d ask the general public to permit the DOJ to finish its impartial investigation earlier than reaching a conclusion.”
The day after the taking pictures, Dicus stated that Savannah had run towards deputies earlier than she was shot, implying that she might have posed a menace. However Savannah’s final steps have been cautious, based on helicopter footage in a 15-minute incident video narrated by the Sheriff’s Division. Savannah appeared to crouch close to the bottom after getting out of her father’s white truck. The anonymous deputy heard within the audio shouts to her amid the sound of gunshots simply earlier than she is shot by one other deputy.
Dicus additionally stated after the incident that sheriff’s investigators decided Shannon “was a participant in taking pictures at our deputies” in the course of the high-speed pursuit that preceded her dying. Within the video, nevertheless, the division walked again that declare, saying the query of whether or not Shannon fired at deputies was nonetheless being investigated.
In a press release on Friday, Dicus stated he spoke to the media after the taking pictures “to take care of transparency all through the method.”
Dicus requested the California Division of Justice to research the taking pictures below Meeting Invoice 1506, which authorizes the state to overview a taking pictures during which an officer is concerned to find out whether or not their actions have been justified.
Scott, whose reporting first appeared within the Guardian, requested info from San Bernardino County below the California Public Data Act in October 2022. For a 12 months and a half, he repeatedly obtained the identical response from the division: The knowledge was a part of an ongoing investigation, and he could be offered an replace at a later time.
On Friday, when the county launched a number of movies concerning the taking pictures — an edited video summarizing the occasions that led as much as the taking pictures and unedited video footage from a helicopter and surveillance movies — these have been accompanied by a press release saying the county hadn’t been capable of present all the proof sooner due to a ransomware assault in April 2023 that additionally hindered its capacity to offer info to the California Division of Justice.
“Regardless of in depth and ongoing efforts to resolve this subject, a lot of the info remained inaccessible,” the Sheriff’s Division stated in a press release that accompanied the discharge of the paperwork. All the info that state investigators sought has since been made out there to them.
Police transparency legal guidelines similar to 2018’s Senate Invoice 1421 and Meeting Invoice 748 require the disclosure of information associated to police shootings, sure makes use of of pressure and any info relating to the harm or dying of an individual by an officer. However there’s usually resistance from legislation enforcement businesses to launch the data.
“The general public has a proper to the total story, not simply the official story,” stated David Loy, authorized director with the nonprofit First Modification Coalition.
The group offered authorized recommendation to Scott and threatened to file a lawsuit as he sought information from the Sheriff’s Division. Whereas there have been many questions swirling across the Graziano case, the one facet that’s clear is that sheriff’s deputies have been concerned in a taking pictures and that warrants the disclosure of knowledge, Loy stated.
There are authorized causes for withholding paperwork, Loy stated, similar to potential hurt to a confidential supply. However the legislation doesn’t enable a police company to withhold information just by saying there’s an investigation.
“As soon as the taking pictures had occurred, tragic because it was, there have been no additional witnesses to be interviewed, there have been no confidential sources. It was an incident that occurred in broad daylight on I-15,” he added.
Police businesses ought to enable members of the general public to make up their minds moderately than withhold very important info, Loy stated.
“I’m not right here to take a place on whether or not this can be a legally justified taking pictures. However legislation enforcement officers work for the folks, not the opposite manner round,” he stated. “They’re public servants. We pay their salaries identical to rubbish employees or planners or clerks. And so the general public has a proper to, in impact, audit their efficiency.”
The Division of Justice declined to touch upon the investigation, referring a Instances reporter to a September 2022 information launch concerning the investigation.
The San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors is being stored up to date by the Sheriff’s Division on all exterior investigations into the county, based on David Wert, a county spokesperson.
“Based mostly on the data offered, it seems that the sheriff is managing these conditions appropriately,” Wert stated.
The Sheriff’s Division has not launched the names of the deputies concerned within the taking pictures.
