Sean Monterrosa: body-camera video raises fresh questions about police killing - The Guardian

Footage reveals officer fired shots before stopping his vehicle and police were uncertain whether Monterrosa was armed.

Body-camera footage of the deadly police shooting of Sean Monterrosa has raised new questions about why a Vallejo officer fired a round of bullets from inside his vehicle at the unarmed 22-year-old.

Vallejo officers were responding to a call about looting after midnight when one officer, identified by local reporters as Detective Jarrett Tonn, drove up and fired through the windshield of his unmarked car.

After the shooting, the city’s police chief said Monterrosa was on his knees with his hands raised, and that he had a hammer in his pocket.

In the seconds after the shooting, two officers questioned whether Monterrosa was armed, one saying: “What did he point at us?” and the other responding: “I don’t know.”.

Days after the shooting, Shawny Williams, the Vallejo police chief, told reporters that Monterrosa was kneeling with his hands raised and that the officer mistakenly thought he had a gun, and later discovered it was a hammer in his pocket.

Before Monterrosa, Vallejo police killed Willie McCoy, a 20-year-old who had been sleeping in his car when six officers fired 55 bullets in 3.5 seconds