Last year, reports of a fatal shooting involving an 18-year-old teenager and the police broke the news. What made the shooting so controversial was the fact that the parents of the victim, Sammy Villarreal, claimed that their son was gunned down by an officer for no apparent reason. To make things worse, the footage of the incident was erased as a way of covering up the shooting. This led the family of Villareal to file a federal lawsuit against the city.
According to the claim, the Californian teenager was unarmed and did not pose a threat to an Indio police officer when he was shot on October 14, 2015. Villarreal was on the passenger seat of a vehicle parked in an apartment complex at the time of shooting. This was contrary to the police reports saying that he tried to flee in the car when two police officers approached either side of the vehicle. The police claimed that Villarreal got scared and accelerated backwards before he crashed onto the police car. This prompted one of the policemen to open fire, striking the young driver at least once through his left side.
Villarreal was rushed to the emergency room of John F. Kennedy Memorial Hospital, where he died shortly after the shooting. The officers were not injured. The officer was identified as Cpl. Leonardo Perafan.
On the lawsuit filed against the police officers, the parents of Villarreal are fighting for justice for their killed son. They felt that the shooting was uncalled for since neither men was on the path of the vehicle when it accelerated backwards.
Time reports that on the lawsuit, the entire incident was recorded by security cameras as well as a building manager's cell phone. This footage was allegedly seized by the officers before it was erased.
With the lawsuit in place, a criminal investigation of the shooting is being conducted by the Riverside County Sheriff's Department. The District Attorney's Office could not review the case further since it was still under the care of the sheriff's department. Staff from the Christiansen Apartments declined to speak to the media about the incident. A source told The Desert Sun that some witnesses report that a woman was on the passenger seat of Villarreal's vehicle but this was not confirmed.
