New video details officer-involved shooting of unarmed teen in South LA
LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- The LAPD has released new video in connection with the fatal shooting of an unarmed 18-year-old by a plainclothes officer in the Figueroa Corridor.
Ricardo Ramirez Jr., 18, of Richmond, Calif. was fatally shot on the night of July 13 by a vice sergeant.
His family is planning to sue the department, saying the teen was unarmed and did not even know he was approaching an armed police officer that evening.
LAPD says the teen was wearing a ski mask and was shot after the car he was in pulled over and blocked off lanes and two occupants got out and approached the other vehicle.
The sergeant who shot the teen was not wearing a body camera but the new footage includes surveillance video from nearby cameras as well as bodycam footage from officers who responded afterward.
The incident started as LAPD officers were conducting a prostitution enforcement operation in the Figueroa Corridor. They saw a silver Cadillac pull up in front of a Toyota Camry and the masked occupants get into a heated exchange with those in the other vehicle.
The Toyota took off.
As the Cadillac also left the scene, a vice sergeant in an unmarked vehicle followed.
An officer's voice on radio traffic can be heard stating: "Follow that car because they were all masked up. Follow that car."
The Cadillac soon pulled over in a residential neighborhood near 66th and Flower streets in South Los Angeles. It turned around and partially blocked the roadway and the occupants got out.
One occupant approached the passenger side while another - later identified as Ramirez and described as wearing a mask - approached the driver's side of the unmarked police vehicle. Ramirez can be seen immediately falling to the ground as he was shot once in the chest from the police vehicle.
The second man returned to the Cadillac, which fled from the scene. Other officers arrived at the scene and they attempted to render medical aid to Ramirez until paramedics arrived. He was brought to a nearby hospital and pronounced dead there.
Other LAPD officers and the CHP engaged in a lengthy chase of the Cadillac, which eventually ended in a surrender on the northbound 15 near the 138 in San Bernardino County. The driver, Israel Dezama, 26, of Pittsburg, Calif. was arrested for felony evading. The other two occupants were questioned and released.
No weapons were recovered from the Cadillac or Ramirez.
The family's attorney says Ramirez and the others in the vehicle had been driving near the Figueroa Corridor when they noticed a dark unmarked vehicle with tinted windows following them. They say Ramirez got out of the car and had his palms up, intending to ask why they were being followed, when he was shot in the chest.
"It's very disturbing. It's hard to see my son... he got shot and he tried crawling for his life, and just to see him do that it was just really hard," Ramirez's mother Renee Villalobos said.
"This shot came from within the car, through glass - meaning that Ricky didn't even have an opportunity to see someone in the car pointing a gun at him, much less somebody he would identify as a police officer," attorney Christopher Dolan, who represents the family, said last week.
The LAPD says the incident remains under investigation.
The LAPD video detailing the incident can be viewed here on YouTube.
