A California judge has ruled that a civil case to determine whether police officers used excessive and unreasonable force when they fatally shot a double amputee after dumping him from his wheelchair will be settled by a jury.
The case stems from a deadly police encounter involving 36-year-old Anthony Lowe, a double amputee who was shot 11 times by police officers in Huntington Park, California, according to a lawsuit filed by Lowe’s family.
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When responding officers Paul Munoz and Joshua Volasgis directly confronted Lowe, Lowe tried moving away, but one of them grabbed the back of his wheelchair and dumped him to the ground, the family’s lawsuit states.
According to the judge’s ruling, a knife also fell out of the wheelchair, which Lowe grabbed after he righted himself on the ground and kept moving away from the officers.
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“Officers deployed two separate Tasers in an attempt to subdue the suspect, but the Tasers were ineffective,” the statement said. “The suspect continued to threaten officers with the butcher knife, resulting in an officer-involved shooting.”
However, cellphone video taken by a passing motorist shows Lowe grabbing the knife and hobbling away from the police while the officers have their weapons drawn. Surveillance footage also shows the moments when an officer threw Lowe from his wheelchair onto the sidewalk and when Lowe began distancing himself from the cops.
Rowe’s death prompted protest over the excessive force used on a disabled person.
“I felt good there’s other people that care, that they see some wrong in this, because this was wrong,” the mother of Lowe’s 15-year-old son, Ebonique Simon, told NBC News.
The family’s complaint states that Lowe was suffering a mental health crisis at the time, as he was still grappling with the recent amputations of both his legs. He was supposed to receive prosthetics the month after he was shot and killed.
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Testimonies from a witness and another police officer corroborated the family’s claims that Lowe wasn’t a danger to the public. The witness testified that he saw Lowe being “knocked” from his wheelchair and that he was “(s)cared, trying to escape.”
Another Huntington Park police officer who reviewed video footage of the shooting testified that Lowe never appeared to be an “imminent” threat to the officers and “the video did not necessarily reflect best police practices.”
The family’s suit against Munoz, Volasgis, and the city of Huntington Park seeks damages for wrongful death, assault, battery, negligence, and unreasonable force, among other charges.
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“The Court agrees with Plaintiffs that the video footage does not demonstrate objectively reasonable police conduct as a matter of law,” Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Virginia Keeny ruled. “The video does not clearly show Lowe threatened the Officers with a knife.”
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Lowe’s family members filed and settled their first lawsuit in 2023, but Lowe’s daughter pursued another civil injunction in early 2024 against the same parties. The judge stated that both actions have been consolidated into one.
(*) This article appears on AltrightTV in support of Law Enforcement. As of late, many police officers are under fire for doing their jobs, which is PROTECT and Serve. If you pull a knife on an officer, you should expect to be met with deadly force.
* Original Article: