PLEASANTON — Attorneys for a San Jose man killed by an officer in July say a privately commissioned toxicology test shows their client was not on drugs when he was fatally shot, the latest public salvo in a case that has pitted Hollywood legal muscle against a placid Bay Area suburb.
Ben Meiselas, working for the firm headed by celebrity lawyer Mark Geragos, said the test conducted by Pennsylvania-based NMS Labs found “no positive findings” of narcotics in the system of 19-year-old John Deming Jr. when he was shot during a confrontation at a downtown luxury auto showroom in the early morning hours of July 5.
The test results, revealed Thursday, appear to be aimed in part at neutralizing the implications of a search warrant, served at the San Jose home of Deming’s mother after the shooting, seeking “controlled substances likely to cause psychotic behavior.”
Pleasanton police declined to comment on the toxicology report, citing the ongoing investigation.
The independent test — signed by forensic toxicologist Edward J. Barbieri and copies of which were sent to reporters — is the latest in an aggressive strategy by the Geragos firm to seize the narrative of the city’s first fatal police shooting in over a decade. It follows a claim against the city in late August — filed to preserve Deming’s family’s rights to file a lawsuit at a later date — in which Meiselas and Geragos asserted a private autopsy showed Deming had no offensive wounds, and counters the police account that he was shot at close range after beating Officer Daniel Kunkel into near-unconsciousness.
Gerald Uelman, one-time dean and current criminal law professor at Santa Clara University and member of the legal defense team in the iconic O.J. Simpson murder trial, said the strategy incurs minimal risk and can be effective if the goal is to cast doubt on authorities.
“It’s a bad idea to just sit and wait for the official investigation to be completed,” Uelman said. “Very often that ends up with everybody getting on board with the police version of events. I think one way you counteract it is to get independent investigators and experts into the case as quickly as possible.”
In the hours after the shooting, police said Kunkel was treated and released for minor injuries, then two days later said that in fending off Deming, Kunkel’s head hit the concrete and he absorbed several blows to the head, becoming briefly unresponsive.
Meiselas said that inconsistency in the police explanation of what happened continues to be at the heart of his firm’s investigation.
“The opening salvo here was two press releases that made no sense and defamed a young, unarmed teenager,” he said. “We just asked tough questions. This false narrative was an invitation for the public to ask these questions.”
A burglary alarm drew authorities to Specialty Sales Classics on Spring Street around 2 a.m. on July 5. Police say arriving officers found Deming acting erratically, including throwing a 50-pound floor jack through the window and leapfrogging cars while screaming.
Police say when bean bags and Taser shocks, either missed or ineffective, did not stop him, he reportedly ran to the back of the dealership, where he encountered Kunkel. That’s when police say Deming charged at and brought Kunkel to the ground, prompting the officer to fire three shots from his handgun.
Relatives say Deming, a Piedmont Hills High School graduate, was traveling from his mother’s house in San Jose to his father’s house in Oakdale, where John Sr. was once a reserve police officer. Neither authorities nor the family know what made him stop in Pleasanton.
Contact Robert Salonga at 408-920-5002. Follow him at Twitter.com/robertsalonga.
