Legal Research
Practice Management
Law and Technology
Legal News
Practice of Law
Verdict of The Week
Hot Docs: Mother of 18-year-old killed by DEA agents sues
May 12, 2011
Under what circumstances can federal agents open fire on a suspect?
There’s already a significant amount of case law on the topic, but there’s always room for different factual scenarios.
Just ask Carol Champommier, the mother of an 18-year-old man who was shot and killed by Federal Drug Enforcement Agency officers.
Champommier is suing the DEA for using excessive and unnecessary force on her son, because, according to the complaint, he was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The complaint narrates the circumstances leading up to her son’s killing as follows:
On the evening of June 24, 2010, defendants’ agents and officers, while undercover, congregated in a parking lot on Ventura Boulevard in Studio City, California.
They next detained a man who was walking through the parking lot.
Champommier’s son Zachary was sitting in a parked vehicle waiting to meet a friend when he observed the agents detain the man.
Zachary began to drive his vehicle to exit the parking lot, and when the agents saw him leaving, they opened fired, killing him instantly.
The complaint claims that Zachary was unarmed, and driving away from the agents, and therefore posed no danger to the officers.
It also states that the officers filed false reports on the incident in an attempt to cover up what happened.
Hot Doc: Champommier v. United States
Source: Westlaw News & Insight – National Litigation
Unless the actual facts vary significantly from the complaint, this will be an easy case for Champommier to win.
The Supreme Court held in Tennessee v. Garner that deadly force may not be used during an arrest unless it is necessary to prevent the suspect’s escape, and the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others.
Of course, the government will have to show that there was some attempt at arrest made on Zachary before he fled. And to make that showing, the government would first have to show that he was aware that the undercover officers in street clothes were, in fact, federal authorities.
In truth, for the government to prevail here, Zachary would have had to have been knowingly fleeing from a lawful arrest, and he would have had to have been armed or threatening to run over the officers with the car when they shot him.
While the officers’ reports no doubt claim as such, that isn’t going to be enough in court.
Let’s assume that Zachary was party to the drug transaction that the officers were trying to bust up (which there’s no evidence of thus far).
Logically, if he saw someone getting arrested, even if he didn’t know the person, why wouldn’t he flee?
What motivation would he have to charge the officers with this car?
What motivation would he have to flash a gun so that the officers were aware that he was armed?
Unless the government can make such a showing, they had better settle outside of court.
Unfortunately, no amount of money will be able to bring Carol Champommier’s son back.
There are nuances to this story that should be considered for deliberation:
1. LA County Sheriff Log 160 describes the operation as a “multi-jurisdictional task force” comprised of personnel from DEA, LASD, LAPD, and others. They were “debriefing” in a public parking lot servicing restaurants and clubs in Studio City, CA following a service of warrant operation in the area.
2. The law enforcement personnel were plainclothes and had unmarked cars. They claimed that they did not have time to identify themselves as law enforcement to Champommier and were “fearing for their lives” when they fired multiple shots.
Based on 1 and 2, was there a duty owed to the public/patrons, particularly given that the need for stealth was over, to cordon off the area in use and/or to wear identifying clothing so that the public would be aware as to the presence of law enforcement, or to have held the debriefing at the nearby LAPD North Hollywood Division versus a busy public parking lot? Moreover, how would Zac, or any member of the public, have been able to distinguish these men, who were brandishing weapons, from criminals or carjackers?
3. Champommier had never physically met the person he was intending to meet that evening.
Based on 3, how reasonable would it be to assume that Zac would be able to identify the man being accosted by law enforcement personnel as the person he was there to meet given the distance between Champommier’s car and the acquaintance, and that it was approximately 9:30 pm? In other words, how close would one have to be to be able to identify someone that may only have been seen on a computer screen the night before?
4. In his attempt to leave the area, Champommier is alleged to have “sped into” the group of plainclothes officers, striking a deputy with his car. This collision is said to have caused the officer to be thrown into air yet land on the hood and roll off onto the ground. This officer was then able to discharge his weapon at Zac’s car.
Based on 4, if true that Champommier “sped into the group”, by what physics are the following explained:
a. How is it possible to be thrown into the air by a speeding car yet land on the hood of that car if it is indeed ‘speeding’?
b. How likely would it have been for Champommier to have been ‘speeding’ if he was driving directly towards the fence boundary to the Los Angeles River and had approximately 20 yards before contact with that boundary?
c. How could agent LoPresti, who is alleged to have been toward the rear of Zac’s car, approach, fire the only shot to strike Zac (which entered Zac’s upper left arm, traversing his chest cavity and exited his upper right arm, indicating that Lopresti stood facing Zac’s driver’s side door), if Zac was indeed ‘speeding’?
d. How likely is it that an officer allegedly struck by a speeding car, “thrown into the air and landing on the hood and striking the windshield and thrown onto the ground”, would be able to recover and fire off shots if the car was indeed speeding?
5. Since the fatal shot entered Zac’s upper left arm and exited his upper right arm, indicating that the shooter stood facing Zac’s driver’s side door, and if true that additional bullets were fired from the rear of Zac’s car, and if Zac’s ability to turn left was precluded by the fence he was driving parallel to as he approached what would essentially be the upper left corner of a rectangle if viewed from above, how can the officers claim to have acted in self-defense or defense of others, or been in fear for their lives, if the bullet trajectories and layout of Zac’s position indicate that no one occupied the forward position in any possible “zone of danger”?
The LA County District Attorney refused to press charges against the law enforcement personnel responsible for Zac’s killing. Here, since the law evolves and there is no statute of limitations on murder, what is the possibility that an evidentiary threshold could be reached during presentation of the plaintiffs’ case whereby it is established with certainty that a) it would have been impossible for Zac to have rendered serious bodily injury or death to any party present, b) the law enforcement agent who killed Zac acted in retaliation for Zac allegedly striking the deputy sheriff? Would it be possible that the DA would then be forced to reconsider their prior determination as to criminal prosecution?
“Let’s assume that Zachary was party to the drug transaction that the officers were trying to bust up (which there’s no evidence of thus far).”
I’ve walked through that well-lighted, busy, upscale, safe parking lot at the corner of Ventura and Laurel Canyon hundreds of times. I’ve never seen any drug transactions there and never heard of any either.