Use of Force Unnecessary in Champommier Killing

More and more questions coming out on the deadly and tragic shooting by LA Sheriff's deputies of Granada Hills teen Zac Champommier last month.

Champommier was in a Studio City parking lot at the same time a plain-clothes multi-jurisdictional police operation was underway.  Police had accosted a suspicious man in the parking lot who they believed was casing vehicles at the shopping center.  While this was happening 18 year old Zac, a suburban kid who probably never saw a bunch of un-uniformed officers waving guns before, got scared and decided to get the hell out of there.  In his exit Champommier bumped one of the plainclothes officers with his car.  

Sheriff's deputies assuming Champommier may have been an accomplice to the other man decided to shoot first and ask questions later killing the youngster, rather than perhaps just seek to disable the vehicle and halt the pursuit.

Now the man who the police had accosted is speaking out saying that police were slow to identify themselves leading him to think there were gang members about to attack him and that Champommier did not speed off but drove away slowly.

This blog has been supportive of law enforcement and realizes it's a dirty job none of us would be willing to do. That being said any profession has it's "cowboy" element and it appears that was in play here.  One must question why the officers were meeting in a busy upscale shopping center where their mere presence amongst folks not use to such a scene could be risky.  And were the officers so amped up into a pack mentality that their approach to investigating a man checking out cars was way over the top creating intense fear in a naive young boy nearby?

Indeed much is to be investigated here and hopefully some answers will come out.

No matter those answers, an innocent life has been lost and a community has been ripped apart.