Yoanna Prieto, a 19 year old
from Salinas, California, managed to get a video of the Salinas Police fatally
shooting a mentally ill suspect earlier this week, and the video has gone viral
across the Internet.
During the video, Prieto can be
heard screaming at the police:
“Why the f*** did you guys
shoot him? F***ing idiots! You guys are f***ing idiots!”
The drama began when Salinas
police officers were called to the scene by an unidentified woman who claimed
there was a man attempting to break into her home and kill her dog. A bizarre
recording of the 911 call claimed the man, after failing to get into her home
waving gardening shears, exposed himself and walked off.
Commander Vince Maiorana of the
Salinas Police Department, told the Monterey Herald:
“Officers found the man walking
down the street with gardening shears in his hand. Officers end up talking to
this individual, trying to find out what he’s doing and what the situation was
based upon the original 911 call. This individual started to wave the gardening
shears at the officers. We tried to deploy a Taser; the Taser did not work and
as the officers tried to detain this individual, this individual pulled the
gardening shears and actually attacked the officers with the gardening shears.
In response, the officers, fearing for their personal safety, shot this
individual and he is now deceased.”
Prieto put the video on her
personal Facebook page, and from there, it spread to every corner of the
Internet. Prieto claims that before she uploaded the file to her Facebook page,
she gave a copy to the police department so they would not be blindsided by it.
The video is disturbing to say
the least. It is unclear whether the officers in question were even being
attacked at all. From the looks of things on the video, the man seems to want
to get away from the officers. People are questioning why to officers didn’t
use batons or tasers to subdue the man.
By the book, the officers were
well in their rights to use lethal force if they felt that they were being
attacked by a man with garden shears. As of now, there have been no charges
brought against the officers, and the Salinas Police Department ruled the
officers followed proper police procedure.
Do you think that the officers
were within their rights to shoot the man? Watch the video below and voice your
opinion in our comments section.