It would seem the story the Sheriff's department, as well as the DEA, concocted regarding the events of that night were just that... all fabrications.
"The nature of [Champommier's] aggressive actions - actually hitting the deputy - that is not someone who is without some degree of fault," Sheriff Lee Baca said.
Apparently, not so much, Sheriff Baca. He did nothing wrong. You said as much to his mother. Without waiting for any official report, Sheriff Baca felt it appropriate to slander a dead young man who was killed by the very deputies who should have been protecting him, just hours after they gunned him down.
As for Zac intentionally aiming for a deputy? According to the KNBC report, a witness reported seeing a deputy hopping over the front of Zac's car, not making it to the other side and sliding off, during an altercation with someone else in the parking lot.
Starsky and Hutch fail.
Officers reported that Zac was traveling at a speed of 38 m.p.h. through the parking lot where he was shot. Again, not so. Accident reconstruction experts for both sides of the lawsuit agree: Zac was not traveling any faster than 13 m.p.h., maybe even less, but they settled on 13 for the magic number. So the story of Zac racing into a group of law enforcement officers in an attempt to mow them down was simply a fairy tale. One of many woven that night.
You can finish reading the rest of the KNBC piece here.
3 comments:
Sheriff Baca's verbal attack on Zac Champommier is a defensive tactic by a Sheriff who realized immedeately that he shares criminal culpability in the unjustified killing of Champommier.
In fact, a comprehensive and objective analysis of the persons, their roles and the dynamics between them can support a determination that Sheriff Lee Baca bears the most responsibility of everyone involved for the unjustified killing of Zac Champommier.
Sheriff Lee Baca is more guilty than even the man whose gun fired the fatal shot.
Sheriff Baca is granted the highest level of power in the exercise of his authority to supervise his organization. Along with the authority granted to Sheriff Baca comes a grave and undeniable duty. When Sheriff Baca accepted the authority granted to him he also accepted the duty. The duty can be ignored and it can be perverted, but it can never be legally or ethically separated from the grant of authority.
Sheriff Baca protects himself from any attempt to accurately evaluate his compliance with the duty required by the exercise of his authority.
Sheriff Baca shields himself from review by devoting himself and his organization to preventing public access to the records involving the activities and the personnel of his department.
Sheriff Baca has perfected a system which forestalls any attempt to make an objective and relevant evaluation of his organization and his supervision of that organization.
Nonetheless, Sheriff Baca's system is incapable of modifying the duty he bears in holding the Office of Sheriff of Los Angeles County. He can delay the accounting, but he cannot reduce by an iota the amount of shame, censure and condemnation which shall be assigned when the accounting is finally made.
Because Sheriff Baca has shut off access to the records of his department and personnel, it is impossible to cite specific examples of his failure to properly assign, evaluate, discipline, retrain, reassign, reevaluate, test and terminate.
Although we are precluded from citing specific examples, we have enough information to make a fairly confident determination that Sheriff Baca's record in discharging the duty incumbent with his authority is wholly unacceptable.
Meaning that if we could make a review of specific examples of Sheriff Baca conducting the components of supervision, we would find that his actions fall short of, contradict and violate the rules of best and proper practice which are accepted and taught as standards of law enforcement management.
While Sheriff Baca stonewalls any attempt at accessing the recorded evidence proving the abject and prolonged failure to carry out his duty, he signals to us that this is the case.
Sheriff Baca's statement against Zac Champommier is simply not the kind of thing you will ever hear from an organization whose mission is to operate in compliance with the standard best practices of the profession. In the rare instance of an organization which struggles with conducting itself professionally and allows itself to issue an unfounded and false attack upon a man who has been unjustly killed - the statement would never come directly from the leader at the top.
Yet this is not the first case where the leader at the top of the Los Angeles County Sheriff Department has directly interjected himself in a similarily unseemly and unprofessional manner.
Each time the unconfessed motivation behind Sheriff Baca's actions and statements are the same - self protection and self preservation. Protection and preservation from the consequences of any objective and relevant determination over how his failure of duty factors in to the cause of another tragedy.
The statement made against Zac Champommier by Sheriff Baca represents a clear and undeniable signal. We cannot review the records but Baca is vitally aware of the evidence concealed with them.
There is one conclusion axiomatic in Sheriff Lee Baca's statements and action following the death of Zac Champommier. One and only one sobering conclusion.
Sheriff Lee Baca was immedeately aware that the death of Zac Champommier in the manner and form which it occured could not have happened without the contribution of gross and criminal negligence from Lee Baca.
I look forward to hearing Zac's killers explain the physics behind how Zac's car could have reasonably presented the imminent risk of serious bodily injury or death to Zac killer as Zac's killer stood facing the driver's side door. Someone's going to need a good magician.
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