Activists and relations of a person shot and killed by LAPD officers in Boyle Heights flooded a Police Fee assembly Tuesday to denounce the division’s dealing with of the incident.
Police officers stated Jeremy Flores, 26, was shot final month as he sat in a van holding what turned out to be an Airsoft rifle, which shoots plastic pellets.
Greater than half a dozen individuals who spoke on the assembly referred to as for the fast launch of unedited physique digital camera footage from the July 14 incident. Below state legislation, police should launch video inside 45 days of a taking pictures by officers.
“I simply need justice for my son,” Flores’ mom, Isabella Rivera, instructed the fee by telephone. “No person desires to name LAPD anymore as a result of we’re frightened of them: There’s an excessive amount of violence.”
She joined different audio system in questioning why Los Angeles Police Division officers didn’t do extra to attempt to defuse the scenario, whereas additionally demanding to know why police waited about two hours to supply medical help to Flores as he lay bleeding to demise.
The killing sparked a number of protests in latest weeks within the working-class Latino neighborhood on town’s Eastside, together with one at Mariachi Plaza.
At a rally for Flores on Aug. 5, demonstrators who confirmed up at a Nationwide Evening Out gathering organized by the LAPD have been compelled again by a line of officers wielding batons. At one level, Flores’ sister was reportedly knocked to the bottom by an officer. A number of individuals who spoke at Tuesday’s assembly of the Police Fee — the civilian watchdog that oversees the LAPD — denounced using pressure.
The division has recognized officers who shot Flores as Livier Jimenez, Fernando Godinez and Michael Ruiz.
Police have stated that the Hollenbeck Division officers have been responding to a 911 name a couple of man with a “attainable assault rifle” after they encountered Flores in an alley on the 1200 block of Spence Road, sitting inside a white utility van holding what seemed like a rifle.
They stated he refused instructions to exit the van and drop the weapon, which officers didn’t understand was not an actual gun. As a substitute, based on police, Flores continued to sit down within the driver’s seat after which raised the reproduction rifle, prompting three officers to open hearth.
Police stated that after the taking pictures, Flores “remained non-compliant and refused to exit the car.” Finally, a cadre of closely armed SWAT officers and paramedics approached the car and located him unresponsive. He was pronounced lifeless as a result of a number of gunshot wounds.
As with all LAPD shootings, an inner overview is underway. The case can be being investigated by the state lawyer basic’s workplace, which appears in any respect police shootings of unarmed people. Reproduction weapons will not be thought-about lethal underneath state legislation, and an individual carrying them is taken into account unarmed.
Rivera described Flores as “sensible” and a bighearted son who preferred to jot down music and was making an effort to start out going again to church usually. Though he was good with numbers, he wished to strive for a job in building due to the pay and advantages, she stated.
“We don’t put together for these sorts of tragedies,” she stated. “My boy’s life counts, he was a human like everyone else. I’m not searching for cash. I’m simply searching for justice.”
Flores, she stated, had skilled occasional stumbles as a younger grownup. Not lengthy earlier than his demise, he had been launched from jail after being locked up on a probation violation, she stated.
And but, she had seen a change in him. Some time again, he had written out an inventory of targets in a diary: cleansing up his act, going again to high school and deliberate to get married.
His fiancee, Paola Mendez, stated the couple had identified one another solely a short while however talked usually about their future. She has taken to posting a few of their textual content exchanges on her Instagram account.
“I need them to take accountability. I need them to pay for what they did,” she stated.
Despite the fact that police haven’t launched another particulars, Mendez stated she believes Flores could have skilled a psychological well being disaster.
To this point in 2025, LAPD officers have opened hearth 27 occasions — killing 9 folks and wounding an extra 14 — in contrast with 19 police shootings on the identical time final 12 months, police data present. In response to a Instances database, Flores was at the least the 18th particular person shot by police in Boyle Heights since 2015 — the second-highest quantity in any space after downtown.
