Court: Cop Shot Man Less Than a Second After Giving Command

A federal appeals court on Friday rejected a Southern California police officer's bid to have a wrongful death suit against him dismissed, noting that he gave a suspect less than a second to raise his hands before shooting him. Tustin Police Officer Osvaldo Villarreal was initially cleared in the December 2011 shooting death of 31-year-old Benny Herrera, but Herrera's family has filed a civil suit against him over the incident. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said on Friday that it didn't buy Herrera's claims that he feared for his own safety when he shot Herrera, noting that video filmed by a police dashboard cam showed otherwise. “Less than a second elapsed between Villarreal commanding Herrera to take his hand from his pocket and Villarreal shooting him,” the court found. “The command and the shots were almost simultaneous.” The video has not been made public. A review of the case by the Orange County District Attorney's Office in 2013 said the shooting was justified because Herrera had ignored commands to raise his hands. Friday's ruling by the appeals court will now allow the civil suit against Herrera to go ahead.