It’s been one week since an off-duty Los Angeles police officer shot and killed a non-verbal mentally disabled man inside a Southern California Costco and the public has yet to see the surveillance video.
Instead, we are told we must be patient and allow the Corona and the Los Angeles police departments to conduct their respective investigations which can take weeks or months, according to the Los Angeles Times.
It also appears that police are preparing the public into seeing an incomplete video by telling the L.A. Times that only “parts of the encounter” was recorded by the Costco surveillance camera.
Two sharply different accounts have emerged. Officials said there was video showing at least parts of the encounter, but that video has not yet been released.
The officer’s attorney, David Winslow, said his client was getting a food sample for his son when he was attacked and briefly knocked out by French.
“He was shopping with his wife and 1½-year-old at Costco. His son was in his arms, and he was feeding his son some samples when, within seconds, he was on the ground and woke up from being unconscious and he was fighting for his life,” Winslow said.
The French family attorney, Dale K. Galipo, said Kenneth French pushed the officer in the food sample line but that the exchange wasn’t justification for a shooting.
Having seen the video, Galipo said Kenneth French was likely off his regular medication to push the officer but nothing he saw in the video justified the shooting.
He said the victim’s father tried to intervene by stepping in between the two but the cop pulled out his gun and shot three people, killing the son and wounding his parents.
Galipo makes no mention of the cop being knocked out so perhaps that is the missing parts police are talking about.
All we know for certain is that the cop’s name is Salvador Sanchez and that he has been placed on paid administrative leave.
Parents Russell and Paola French were listed in critical condition and neither have given any statements to police. And it does not appear as if Corona police have made any serious attempt at interrogating Sanchez for shooting three unarmed people and killing one over what may have been a case of food rage.
The LAPD is conducting an administrative investigation to determine whether he violated any departmental policies while the Corona Police Department is conducting the criminal investigation where they said they are still talking to witnesses, probably hoping to find one that will support the cop narrative.
