Family members of a 26-year-old man who was shot and killed by Hemet police earlier this month are demanding justice, saying officers used excessive and unnecessary force.
"My son is gone. I'm never going to see him again," said Mandy Diaz, surrounded by friends, family members and attorneys at a news conference outside Hemet City Hall.
"I'm never going to see him be a good father to his kids," said Diaz about her son, Jimmy Lopez. "They took his life at a young age, and he didn't deserve this."
According to police, the incident occurred on the 4th of July around 1:40 a.m. outside a bar at the corner of E. Florida Avenue and N. Harvard Street. The call came in from someone reporting an intoxicated man who walked out of the bar with a gun in his pants.
Surveillance video of the incident provided by attorneys shows Lopez sitting on the sidewalk as police approached.
Lopez appears to make some kind of move, and police started shooting. Attorney Christian Contreras said Lopez was struck 18 times.
"This is clearly excessive, it's clearly unlawful and some people are calling this a murder," said Contreras.
Contreras said Lopez was not armed with a firearm. He did say that Lopez had an airsoft gun in his possession.
"Although there may have been a report of a gun, that doesn't necessarily mean that the person is armed with a gun," he said. "The gun that was found wasn't a real gun. When you look at the video, [some] people might say it looks like he was reaching. To me, it looks like he was just trying to push himself up, and trying to get up."
The Hemet Police Department released an update on the investigation Friday , saying they're "aware of allegations that the subject in this officer-involved shooting was unarmed at the time of the incident and or he was compliant with his hands up."
"This is not the case," read the press release. "The subject involved in this incident was armed with what, from all appearances, was a gun. Only upon analysis by investigating authorities after the incident, was it determined that the gun was an airsoft pistol, not technically a firearm. There was no way for officers to know that at the time they encountered the decedent, however."
Police said surveillance footage from nearby businesses, along with body camera footage from officers, shows that Lopez had the pistol before the shooting and pointed it toward officers.
Investigators said a critical incident video related to the shooting will be released soon.
"We are committed to transparency and will provide all relevant information to the public as it becomes available."
Contreras said he wants to see criminal prosecution against the officers who fired at Lopez, and said the family intends to file a lawsuit against the city of Hemet.
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