Interim Police Chief to Answer Questions From City Council About Officer-Involved Shootings at Committee Meeting

Interim Police Chief Cheryl Moody is scheduled to respond to questions from the Pasadena City Council about police officer-involved fatal shootings in a report that goes before the Public Safety Committee on Wednesday.

The 4 p.m. item is agendized as a no-vote, information-only item.

“During the special meeting for investigational purposes for City Council on January 31, several council members had questions related to the length of time it takes to complete an officer-involved shooting investigation,” according to the committee’s agenda.

According to current city policy, local detectives respond to the scene immediately after an OIS and begin a criminal investigation and notify the district attorney’s office. Investigators from the DA’s office may arrive on the scene. Once the detective’s case is completed it is submitted to the DA for a determination on the legality of the shooting.

The city’s administrative investigation is deferred until the district attorney’s investigation is completed and all civil litigation matters resolved.

Since 2016, Pasadena police officers have been involved in five fatal officer-involved shootings.

Four investigations are still pending, including one from 2021, two from 2020 and one from 2019. In one of those incidents, the suspect committed suicide and was not killed by police.

In November, police engaged in a gun battle in East Pasadena with Devin Edward Hall. Hall opened fire in an East Pasadena neighborhood in November after fatally shooting a man told his female hostage he wanted her to perform a sexual act.

The woman also reported that suspect Devin Edward Hall killed himself moments after she fled from him.

Hall, a military veteran, was using the woman as a shield during the shooting.

In separate incidents in 2020, police fatally shot Anthony McClain during a traffic stop and Lloyd Nelson. Nelson, 45, was killed by officers after leading them on a slow-moving pursuit and opening fire on officers from inside his vehicle.

In May, Pasadena police officers fatally shot Daniel Warren, 36, in Northwest Pasadena after Warren pointed a gun at the officers, who opened fire on him. Warren was wearing a bullet-proof vest and armed with a rifle fitted with a high-capacity drum-style magazine, as well as a handgun.

Warren had retreated to a nearby backyard, where he was found unresponsive and pronounced dead from at least one gunshot wound.

The D.A. is also responsible for OIS incidents in other cities in the county and incidents involving the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, which patrols unincorporated parts of the county.

Officers with the Los Angeles Police Department fatally shot seven people in 2020, and 12, in 2019, according to the LA Times. According to the reports on the district attorney’s website, the D.A. last released a report on an officer-involved shooting in December. That shooting took place in 2019. Several other recently released reports were probes of incidents that happened in 2020.

One report released in November detailed an investigation from an LAPD shooting in 2017.

In January, the City Council voted 5-2 against a request for the city manager to establish a policy that would have required the police to complete its internal investigation, which is standard and is separate from the district attorney’s investigation, within nine months of an officer-involved shooting.

“I think we can all agree that leaving these difficult incidents to fester for years while we wait for the D.A.’s determination letter is not good for the victim’s families, the public trust or the officers,” Vice Mayor Andy Wilson told Pasadena Now on Wednesday.

Mayor Victor Gordo called on the city’s police chief to write a letter to District Attorney George Gascón calling for more resources on investigations. Pasadena Interim Police Chief Cheryl Moody will reach out to other police chiefs that are waiting for long investigations to conclude.

“I think we should do all we can as a city to persuade like-minded police chiefs and other elected officials to take this matter up with the District Attorney,” Gordo said.