The Los Angeles Police Department is facing legal action for shooting an unarmed man in the head and leaving him with a collapsed skull, blindness and crippled.
Walter DeLeon waved a towel in his hands to flag down help in his neighborhood, when he encountered the two officers last summer.
DeLeon exchanged a few words and was quickly shot by LAPD officer Cairo Palacios on a Friday evening.
The horrifying and bloody viral video first posted to twitter on June 19th, 2015 by a witness.
Now a tort lawsuit filed by the victim and his lawyers Geragos & Geragos promises to make tax payers foot the bill for more policy brutality in Los Angeles.
Specifically, for police brutality that exposed poor training and hiring practices at the oft beleaguered LA Police Department.
Media overuse the passive phrase “officer involved shooting” which we eschew for “police shooting” at PINAC News, but in this case, there was second officer involved.
Unfortunately, the Los Angeles Police Department to this day refuses to provide the name of the second officer involved on the scene – [**Chief Beck personally declared the officer’s true identity exempt**](http://photographyisnotacrime.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Loz-Feliz-public-records-request.pdf) – so we don’t know the police officer’s name who didn’t shoot DeLeon, but who is accused of failing render prompt aid to the handcuffed victim in the lawsuit, embedded below.
Police handcuffed the devastated DeLeon instead of rendering medical aid, leading to the lawsuit’s complaint of false arrest.
LAPD’s secret police policy must infuriate the painfully mangled police brutality victim.
Palacios and his secret partner had only been given LAPD badges in 2013 when the General Services division of the department merged into the department.
They were park police officers.
LAPD sent the Palacios and his secret partner into the field daily without dash cams, body cams or any recording device of any sort.
A witness who called himself ‘Manny’ provided a complete 20 second video of the immediate aftermath of LAPD shooting WalterDeLeon exclusively to PINAC News that night, as shown below.
LAPD told [**The Los Angeles Times**](http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-man-with-towel-on-arm-shot-in-head-by-lapd-20150620-story.html) the following afternoon, “‘This person extended an arm wrapped in a towel. The officer exited the vehicle and said, ‘Drop the gun, drop the gun,’ [said] LAPD Lt. John Jenal.”
We know now that that DeLeon did not have a gun.
Officers aimed for the head, now he will never be independent, but he can still talk, and having miraculously retained his voice wishes to gain relief not just for his injuries, but in the seemingly unreachable: true reforms at the LAPD.
Today though, DeLeon is severely deformed, in need of millions in medical treatment to regain a sense of normalcy, and money to pay the bills he used to pay as his family’s breadwinner.
DeLeon suffers from constant nightmares of being shot to the head, along with mental impairment, from near total blindness and the inability to walk.
He lost a pound of “cranial matter” according to court documents.
The incident took place at 6:30 p.m. on Los Feliz Boulevard and Tica Drive during rush hour traffic gridlock.
The witness who went by ‘Manny’ told PINAC News that he saw the officers fire three shots, which he initially believed to be fireworks. Instead of providing medical assistance to Deleon, they are seen handcuffing him first.
LAPD didn’t release victim Walter DeLeon’s name for [**days after the shooting**](http://photographyisnotacrime.com/2015/06/lapd-shot-an-unarmed-man-in-the-street-wont-release-identity/), and the “towel wrapped hand man” caused vociferous speculation about his health.
PINAC Medical Expert Felipe Hemming concluded at the time that DeLeon had survived based on the video, noting the presence of multiple modern medical centers.
DeLeon lost over a quarter of his skull, but he grimly survives.
The police shooting victim is completely dependent on family, now that he cannot work as a construction worker.
Family said he often carried a towel in hand to wipe the sweat from his brow in sunny southern California.
At the time, witness ‘Manny’ told PINAC that, “I didn’t see a weapon, he didn’t seem to hurting anyone, but I don’t know, I only heard the shots and saw he was shot in the head.”
The day of the incident, PINAC News asked the witness if the police or investigators have spoken to him about what he saw, he had not within the first two hours.
[**Walter DeLeon Complaint Against LAPD**](https://www.scribd.com/doc/291974490/Walter-DeLeon-Complaint-Against-LAPD “View Walter DeLeon Complaint Against LAPD on Scribd”) by [**Ben Meiselas**](https://www.scribd.com/user/295155733/Ben-Meiselas “View Ben Meiselas ‘s profile on Scribd”)
