The attorney representing the family of California rapper Willie McCoy, who was killed by officers in a February shooting, is brushing off the conclusions of an independent report that claimed the officers’ actions were “reasonable.”
According to USA Today, the report showed that the six officers involved in the 20-year-old’s shooting death fired 55 times within the span of 3.5 seconds, shortly after McCoy, who was sleeping in his car in the drive-thru of a Taco Bell, woke up.
And yet, it was reasonable.
“It only means to me that local police agencies have found a person they can count on to support their position,” Attorney John Burris told the news site, adding that to him the report was irrelevant.
Burris also pointed out that the hired expert that conducted the report also concluded that police had probable cause in the fatal shooting of Stephon Clark in 2018.
David Blake, a police consultant and retired peace officer who authored the report that was ordered by the city, determined that the officers had probable cause to believe that McCoy was an immediate threat.
“Officers are not required to wait until a weapon is pointed at them to take the necessary steps to save their own lives,” Blake wrote in the report, claiming that officers’ actions were “reasonable based upon my training and experience as a range instructor as well as through applied human factors psychology.”
“These officers used deathly force tactics,” Burris said. “They wake a man up and, before he has a chance to react, they shoot and kill him. That cannot be reasonable.”
The report is not expected to have an impact on the investigations that are still ongoing within the Vallejo Police Department and the Solano County District Attorney’s Office, City Attorney Claudia Quintana told USA Today.
The police have previously said that a final report about the incident could take up to two years to be completed.