The attorney for the family of a man shot and killed by Martinez police outside a marijuana dispensary called Wednesday for authorities to release body-cam footage and other surveillance of the incident.
“We believe the body-worn camera tapes should be released immediately,” attorney Adante Pointer said via phone. “That way the family can see, and the community can see, how officers’ used deadly force.”
Authorities identified 20-year-old Tahmon Kenneth Wilson, of San Francisco, as the person fatally shot in the predawn shooting Aug. 18 outside Velvet cannabis dispensary in the 4800 block of Sunrise Drive.
Pointer said Wilson’s brother was in the backseat of the vehicle. He was recovering Wednesday in a hospital.
The California Department of Justice is investigating the shooting because both men were unarmed. Martinez police confirmed the state’s investigation was in accordance with Assembly Bill 1506, which requires the state to investigate all police shootings of unarmed civilians.
Martinez Police Chief Andrew White said four officers fired their weapons during the incident. Authorities have not identified the four.
“Hopefully the DOJ is taking a very close look,” Pointer said, adding that “the actions of all four officers should be scrutinized.”
Neither the state’s DOJ nor Martinez police have provided many details on what led to the shooting. White said officers responded to a burglary alarm at the dispensary and that arriving officers saw a fleeing white SUV.
Officers then “broadcast that shots were fired and there was an assault on an officer,” White said in a statement last week after the shooting. Police said the driver of the vehicle crashed into a fire hydrant.
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“What we know is that both brothers were shot, and both appear from the rear after they had passed the officers’ position,” Pointer said. “To us, based on the law and officer training, those shots should not have happened.”
One police officer suffered unspecified minor injuries in the incident.
