Officers’ bodycam footage was released Wednesday from the fatal shooting of a San Francisco man who police in Vallejo, California, say was partially kneeling when he was killed last month. But the videos do not show the moments leading up to the shooting.

The footage was made public after the family of Sean Monterrosa, 22, was permitted to view the recordings. Vallejo police said three officers in a pickup truck activated their cameras, but none of the footage showed Monterrosa prior to the officer firing his weapon. The vehicle did not have a camera.

“It was quite surprising and shocking to us that there was no video of the actual shooting itself,” John Burris, an attorney for Monterrosa’s family, said at a news conference. The footage does include the shooting, but does not include a view of Monterrosa until after he had been hit.

Vallejo police said the officers were responding to a report of looting after midnight June 2 when they encountered Monterrosa in a Walgreens parking lot, Police Chief Shawny Williams said in a recorded message packaged with the bodycam footage.

There was a previous incident at the scene in which a police car was rammed and officers described seeing multiple “potential looters” get into cars and flee, Williams said. When the other officers arrived, Williams said, Monterrosa began running toward a car, then stopped and crouched in a half-kneeling position facing officers.

One of the officers told investigators he believed Monterrosa had a gun in his sweatshirt pocket and was kneeling “as if in preparation to shoot,” moving his hands toward his jacket at their approaching vehicle, Williams said.

The officer fired his weapon five times through the windshield, striking Monterrosa, according to authorities.

Police discovered the object inside his pocket wasn’t a gun, but a long hammer.

The hammer could not be seen in the video, but police on Wednesday released an image of it.

After Monterrosa was shot, the officer who fired his weapon could be heard asking, “What’d he point at us?”

“I don’t know, man,” another officer replies.

“Hey, he pointed a gun at us,” the first officer said.

As Monterrosa lay on the ground, officers commanded him not to move and, “Put your hands out. Put your hands out.”

They began to give him medical attention, including chest compressions, before medics arrived.

“Any time a life is lost, it’s tragic, and our thoughts are with Mr. Monterrosa’s family at this time,” Williams said in his message.

In the days following the shooting, Monterrosa’s family and police brutality protesters had called for the release of bodycam video. Police in Vallejo, a Bay Area city about 30 miles north of San Francisco, have been the subject of dozens of excessive force lawsuits and complaints of overly aggressive policing in recent years. Monterrosa’s death is the 18th fatal police-involved shooting since 2010, and the majority of those killed were Black and brown men, records show. Monterrosa was Latino.

The officer who fired his weapon has not been identified by the city, which said it “upholds its right to release the name of the officer at a time and through a method of its choosing.” The Vallejo Police Officers’ Association, the local police union, also filed a temporary restraining order to prevent the release of the officer’s identity. The city said the name could be released once the matter is resolved.

The officer has been placed on paid administrative leave, along with the other witness officers at the scene.

Monterrosa’s sisters have been outspoken about challenging the police department and its timeline of his death. In the initial news release, police failed to say Monterrosa was killed, and Williams did not publicly announce it until a news conference the following afternoon. But the family has previously told reporters that Monterrosa was declared dead at the hospital about an hour after the incident.

“The department worked as quickly as reasonably possible to gather accurate information from the initial phases of the investigation to share with the public,” Vallejo police said on the city’s website.

While police said officers described seeing suspected looters at the scene, the department has not released evidence that Monterrosa was engaged in criminal activity. His sisters said they do not know what he was doing in Vallejo.

Thomas Lane, the former Minneapolis police officer who held George Floyd’s legs while Derek Chauvin kept his knee pressed to Floyd’s neck, wants his charges dismissed. 

Lane’s attorney, Earl Gray, on Tuesday filed a motion to dismiss Lane’s charges. The fired officer is charged with aiding and abetting Chauvin, who has been charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter in Floyd’s death, which sparked nationwide protests against racial inequality and police brutality. 

Gray submitted a series of transcriptions and other evidence in the case to support the motion to dismiss the charges. Two of the transcripts provided were from body-worn cameras and further document the moments before Floyd’s death, which has been ruled a homicide. Another transcript was from an interview the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, conducted with Lane while Gray was present. 

The death of George Floyd: What the criminal complaints say about former officers charged with aiding and abetting Derek Chauvin

In his motion, Gray included bodycam footage from Lane and J. Alexander Kueng, another of the officers charged with aiding and abetting, as well as transcripts from footage from both cameras. 

The transcript from Lane’s body-worn camera provides additional details from the scene. Lane was one of the first two officers to respond to a call about someone allegedly using a fake $20 bill. Lane pulled his gun on the car Floyd was in and Floyd said, “Please don’t shoot me, Mr. Officer,” according to the transcript. 

Lane said he thought Floyd was “on something,” according to the transcript. 

Later, after Floyd repeated he couldn’t breathe while Chauvin had him pinned to the ground, Chauvin told him to stop talking. When Floyd said, “You’re going to kill me, man,” Chauvin replied, “Then stop talking, stop yelling. It takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk.” 

The transcripts further confirm details made evident in probable cause affidavits released with charges were filed against the four officers in the case. 

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Lane asked Chauvin to roll Floyd on his side — twice — but Chauvin refused. 

Lane held Floyd down by his legs. 

At multiple times, Floyd said he couldn’t breathe.

“Despite his comments, the defendant took no actions to assist Mr. Floyd, to change his position, or to reduce the force the officers were using against Mr. Floyd,” a criminal complaint against Lane states. 

In the interview with BCA, Lane answered questions about, among other things, his training leading up to the day of Floyd’s death. He included Chauvin was the field training officer (FTO) for Kueng, who has also since been fired and charged for his involvement in the Floyd case.

8 minutes, 46 seconds and ‘inherently dangerous’: What’s in the criminal complaint in the George Floyd case

Lane said Chauvin also advised him from time to time prior Floyd’s Memorial Day death. 

During the interview, Lane said he was “basically going off (Chauvin’s) experience” at the scene, since Chauvin was the more experienced officer. According to Gray’s filing, Lane had been on the job four days before Memorial Day after completing four months with the police academy, then an additional “four-plus months” with FTOs.

Lane also said EMS asked him to perform CPR after they arrived and put an unconscious Floyd into an ambulance. Lane started chest compressions, though he eventually left the ambulance and went back to the scene, he said.

Lane said he felt Floyd was having a medical emergency while Chauvin kept a knee pressed to Floyd’s neck. When Lane was asked by investigators if he felt he contributed to Floyd’s death, Gray told Lane not to answer. 

Gray also provided photos of what he called two counterfeit $20 bills and two $1 bills “lodged between the center console and the passenger seat” in his motion to dismiss the charges against Lane. 

Lane, along with the other three officers charged in the case, is scheduled to appear in court Sept. 11. 

“Lane did not intentionally aid, advise, hire, counsel, or conspire with Chauvin or otherwise procure Chauvin to commit second degree murder,” Gray wrote in the motion.

“Lane did not encourage any alleged criminal actions of Chauvin. He did not know and had no reason to believe that a third degree assault was being committed, and he certainly did not intend his actions (restraining his legs/feet) to further a crime.”

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