Four Years Later, Reverberations From Ballew Incident Still Impacting Pasadena

Four years after police officers struck a local man with fists and a police baton during an encounter at a local gas station in Altadena, local residents still have concerns about police encounters between police and Black residents. 

Former John Muir High School basketball standout Christopher Ballew was arrested at an Altadena gas station on Nov. 9, 2017 by officers Lerry Esparza and Zachary Lujan for resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer after being stopped for driving without a front license plate and excessive window tint on his late-model Mercedes.

Ballew was struck on the head several times with fists and on the legs with a metal baton. His head was slammed into the asphalt. He suffered a broken leg and several contusions during the arrest. Unbeknownst to police, part of the arrest was captured by a passerby on a cell phone and later posted to Facebook.

“The original bystander video lacked context, but when I saw the body camera and dash recordings, my blood boiled,” said local Attorney John Burton, who is representing Ballew. “These two officers, Lerry Esparza and Zachary Lujan, are thugs who should have been prosecuted for their violent attack on Chris Ballew. The fact that they were exonerated after an internal investigation that took more than three years to complete, and continue policing Pasadena, shows that despite hand wringing and window dressing, nothing has changed.”

Attorneys on both sides are waiting for the court to rule on a motion that has been under submission for a very long time.The case is expected to go on  trial sometime next year.

 

“We can keep learning nothing if we keep doing nothing to change how city departments interact with males of color,” Tarik Ross, former Northwest Commissioner and graduate of the Citizens Police Academy, told Pasadena Now.

The Altadena Town Council sent a letter to then-Mayor Terry Tornek demanding that Lujan and Esparza not be allowed to patrol inside Altadena, despite decades of cooperation between the neighboring areas.

“I have yet to talk to one person who has seen the video who does not believe there was excessive use of force on the part of the police officers,” Altadena Town Council Chairman Okorie Ezieme told the Pasadena Weekly.

The 16-member Town Council, which meets monthly, unanimously voted to send the letter after its January 2018 session. Several local residents also provided input at that meeting.

Esparza and Lujan were cleared in an investigation.

Although the incident happened before current Police Chief John Perez took the helm, the Ballew incident has had a tremendous impact on Perez time leading the department.

“This is by far the most difficult decision I have made since I became police chief,” Perez told Pasadena Now after he announced the results of the administrative investigation.

Perez became police chief in 2018 after Police Chief Phillip Sanchez. 

“Police chiefs are not here long enough to make long term changes,” Perez said. “I knew I was not going to be chief long because of our politics.”

Since the Ballew incident, the department has instituted training on implicit bias and officers consult with a psychologist that explains what goes on in the brain during use of force incidents. 

Officers are now required to take a procedural justice course.

Two of those classes were held for community members. Fifteen to 20 people showed up to those events. 

Perez has also increased diversity in the department. 

“We increased the hirings of African American, Latinos and females,” Perez said.  

Perez is now asking new applicants for their connections to Pasadena.

Adjustments to procedure have resulted in 30 percent fewer incidents of force. 

“The emotional touch matters,” Perez said. “It makes you a better police officer if you are connected to people.

“I hear calls for service that would have resulted in use of force four or five years ago, but now we see more de-escalation.”

According to local activist Patrice Marshall McKenzie, difficult conversations with young people about the very real possibility that Black people are more vulnerable to police violence must continue.

“The probability of these awful encounters is higher simply by virtue of being Black,” she said. “Mr. Ballew’s encounter was a sober reminder that there are no insulators from police violence. More importantly, we must stay vigilant for critical policy changes for use of force that will hopefully be one tool to try and mitigate future acts of harm.”

Although the incident enraged local residents, like the Kendrec McDade incident and three others, it did not lead to a police oversight commission. It would take a full four years before the City Council would finally vote to pass a civilian oversight commission, after George Floyd was killed by police nearly 2,000 miles away.

“It really took the national uprising following George Floyd’s murder to get us to where we are today,” said local Activist Ryan Bell. “As much as the mayor and councilmembers like to say they don’t care what people outside Pasadena have to say, it really was events outside Pasadena that moved the council to finally act.”

“During these four years we have seen the rise of awareness in police brutality towards black and brown and marginalized communities and more understanding of how backwards the system is and how slow the wheels of justice roll down as we are still waiting for a outcome for Chris Ballew knowing now no consequences will ever touch the officers of that incident.” said Florence Annang, who sits on the city’s police oversight commission.

Police spotted Ballew with tinted windows and no front license plate. The officers made a U-turn and followed Ballew into the gas station, where he got out of his car and started walking toward the convenience store.

Ballew initially said he was not driving, when confronted by police. The situation quickly devolved into a violent arrest.

At one point during the incident, Ballew grabbed an officer’s baton. Esparza responded by pulling  his service weapon, but holstered it after Lujan punched Ballew and both men dropped the baton.

Ballew suffered a broken leg after being struck with a police baton. Police arrested him for assault on a police officer. Prosecutors did not charge him due to “a lack of evidence.”

“When he [Lujan] was holding me down at the back of my neck, I was wondering if I was going to die,” Ballew told the Pasadena Weekly in December 2017. “I kept thinking about the worst thing they could do next and they kept doing it. I could have died. He [Esparza] pulled out the gun, but he didn’t pull the trigger.”