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DANVILLE — Video released by the Contra Costa County sheriff on Thursday afternoon shows a deputy open fire without yelling any commands, killing the driver of a slow-moving car in downtown Danville that officers tried to block from escaping.
The deputy, Andrew Hall, fired multiple times at 33-year-old Laudemer Arboleda, of Newark, who had failed to pull over after police tried to question him about a suspicious persons call.
A sheriff’s spokesman said in the introduction to the video that Arboleda was trying to “run down” Hall. The video shows Hall run around his car — drawing his pistol as he does so — to face the silver Honda that Arboleda was driving through a small gap between two police cars in an effort to escape. Hall opens fire within one second of facing the Honda, stepping backwards as he shoots, to avoid the car’s path.
A sheriff’s investigation found Hall’s actions were “legal, proper and in congruence” with internal policies, according to a 300-page sheriff’s document obtained by a KTVU reporter. The report says Arboleda was shot nine times.
The shooting occurred just after 11 a.m. on Nov. 3, 2018, on Front Street near Diablo Road — an intersection in the heart of busy downtown Danville. Police said they had started pursuing Arboleda after a resident reported a “suspicious” person near Cottage Lane and Laurel Drive and he fled when they arrived.
The sheriff’s office released two videos, one showing Hall’s body camera footage and the other showing the dashcam of a police car behind the shooting. The videos were released in response to a request under SB 1421 — the new state police transparency law — by the California Reporting Project, a coalition of 40 media organizations across the state.
The dashcam video starts a few seconds before the shooting, where an officer is following Arboleda on Front Street, his sirens blaring. Arboleda continues to drive and as he reaches Diablo Road, two police cars — a sedan driven by Hall and an SUV — pull up, trying to block Arboleda’s path forward.
Arboleda and Hall both slam on their brakes, narrowly avoiding a head-on collision. At this point, Arboleda accelerates forward and attempts to navigate through a small opening between the two police cars. As he does so, Hall rushes out of his car and around his trunk, drawing his gun as he moves.
When Hall makes it around the trunk, he opens fire into Arboleda’s windshield, striking it several times. He is not heard on either video yelling any commands to Hall, before or after the shooting.
“Oh, s—, he shot him,” the officer in the car behind the Honda can be heard saying on the dashcam video.
The Honda heads onto Diablo Road as Hall continues to fire, a bullet shattering Arboleda’s passenger-side window. The Honda ended up coming to a stop a few yards away, and Arboleda was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.
Hall later told investigators he had “no protection” and shot to protect himself, according to the sheriff’s report.
“I believed he was going to ram me, and kill me,” Hall said, adding that he continued to fire because he feared Hall would change direction into the SUV.
Hall added that he was able to avoid the Honda by “instinctively” moving backwards.
Arboleda’s mother retained well-known Bay Area civil rights attorney John Burris and sued the sheriff’s office last June. Burris also held a press conference last year in which he said police had moved their cars in front of Arboleda and “could have easily avoided any type of incident with the car.”
After the press conference, Contra Costa County Sheriff David Livingston publicly responded, saying Hall shot Arboleda to avoid being run over by the Honda.
“This is about a dangerous and reckless person trying to run down and murder a police officer,” Livingston said in his written statement last year.
The lawsuit is still ongoing.
Melissa Nold, an attorney with Burris’ firm, said in an email to this newspaper that the video shows, “what we consider to be a clear and overt Fourth Amendment violation for excessive and unwarranted force.”
It was the first shooting by a police officer in Danville since August 2001, according to town spokesman Geoff Gillette.
The Contra Costa County District Attorney’s office — which investigates all officer-related deaths — has not completed its probe into the shooting, an agency spokesman said.
A coroner’s inquest jury reviewed Arboleda’s death this year and determined he died, “at the hands of another, not by accident.” The verdict carries no criminal nor civil liability.
During the inquest hearing, only the dashcam — not the body camera footage — was played, an omission Nold said she was “deeply disturbed” by.
“Sadly lack of transparency seems to be par for the course for law enforcement agencies throughout the country,” she said.
Staff writer Thomas Peele contributed to this report.
This story was produced as part of the California Reporting Project, a collaboration of more than 40 newsrooms across the state to obtain and report on police misconduct and use-of-force records unsealed in 2019.
