LAPD cops were busted in a citizen journalist’s video ditching their body cameras, right after shooting and killing the mentally ill father of a 10-month old child just last week, right after receiving a phone call informing them they would be remotely activated.
The video which you can see below was published to YouTube on August 21, shows two Los Angeles Police Department cops in East Hollywood conspiring to stash their recording devices after they fatally shot Marcelo Luna.
Luna suffered from mental illnesses, and was reportedly armed with a “bayonet-style weapon.”
“Hey, toss these in the car,” one unidentified LAPD cop can be heard saying in the video.
“What happened?” asks another LAPD officer.
“They’re remotely activating all the cameras.”
“Who is?”
“It’s coming back on again.”
“Yeah, I know. I just turned it off and saw it come back on again.”
“(Inaudible) called me. He said they were activating.”
“This (inaudible) got a camera.”
Apparently unaware their conversation could be heard, the cops on the scene denied having any cameras.
The Los Angeles citizen journalist who recorded the video and posted it to his youtube channel “Discarted” asked the two LAPD officers, “why did you put your body camera in the patrol unit?”
“We don’t have body cameras; we only have vehicle cameras.”
“You just had a body camera.”
“No, those aren’t cameras; those are microphones.”
“But I caught you on tape saying they’re activated. ‘Let’s put them in the car.’”
“Yeah, we have cameras . . . on all the vehicles.”
“I know, but you just put something in your patrol unit, telling him to put something in his patrol unit.”
The citizen journalist then asked the LAPD cop who denied having body cameras to identify himself.
But the officer refused to answer, and walked away.
Details about the shooting are scant, but LAPD officials have said that the two officers were in a vehicle on patrol when they encountered Luna, who as in his 40s and armed with a “bayonet-style weapon.”
Officers then shot Luna.
He was pronounced dead at the scene by firefighter-paramedics.
According to KTLA5, Los Angeles police won’t say at all what happened before they killed Luna, when the two officers shot and killed him around 1:10 a.m.
Bystander, Joseph Carino, stated he heard someone running and screaming Friday and then heard the police officers tell the man to drop his weapon.
“I heard screaming and then ‘pop, pop, pop, pop,’” he described.
Roxanna Villalobos, Luna’s girlfriend, said her boyfriend wanted to go outside with the bayonet to feel safe.
“We were kind of fighting, arguing with each other. He wanted to go outside with a bayonet, and I didn’t want to let him,” she said. “He goes, ‘I just want to feel safe. I just want to feel safe.’”
According Villalobos, Luna was bipolar and schizophrenic, and had stopped taking his medication.
They had a 10-month-old son together.
PINAC reached out to LAPD media spokesman Sgt. Calderon who stated he was not authorized to comment on what led up to the shooting or if police in who shot Marcelo Luna in East Hollywood were equipped with body cameras.
Interestingly, Sgt. Calderon was the subject of an excessive force investigation himself after the violent arrest of Omar Abrego, who suffered a severe concussion and multiple facial and body contusions, which caused him to be hospitalized on August 3, 2014.
Abrego died the next day, allegedly from “cocaine toxicity,” but the autopsy listed physical and emotional duress as contributing factors.
Prosecutors announced their decision not to charge him on February 11, 2016.
Despite LAPD’s silence about the fatal shooting of Luna, the video below indicates the LAPD cops who shot Luna did have body cameras.
And the officers conspired to stash them after learning they would be remotely activated.
The question is…
Why?
