A mistrial was declared after a jury deadlocked Thursday in the case of a former Los Angeles police officer who shot and killed a mentally disabled man in a confrontation at a Costco store in Corona.
Kenneth French, 32, died during the June 2019 shooting, moments after former Los Angeles police officer Salvador Sanchez claimed French tackled him to the ground.
Sanchez, who was off duty at the time, was standing in a food tasting line, holding his little boy. After the shooting, Sanchez told Corona police and LAPD investigators that he thought he had been shot and believed he saw French pointing a gun at him and his son when he pulled out his gun and shot French.
Sanchez was charged with one count of voluntary manslaughter for French's death and two counts of assault with a firearm for wounding French's mother and father.
The trial began in November and continued until winter break, when a two-week break delayed jury deliberations.
Sanchez's attorney, Michael Schwartz, said the jury had been deliberating for about three and a half days before the mistrial was declared.
“They put it before 12 juries and couldn't get a conviction,” Schwartz said of the charges.
He added that more jurors had expressed support for the defense rather than the prosecution, but did not provide exact numbers.
“This was tragic in every way,” Schwartz said, “but it was not a crime.”
Now the California attorney general's office must decide whether to retry Sánchez. The hearing is scheduled for February 13. A representative for the attorney general's office did not respond to a request for comment Thursday evening.
“I'm disappointed with the resolution, or lack of resolution,” the deputy prosecutor said. Gen. Mike Murphy, the prosecutor in the case, told the Desert Sun.
Sanchez was charged by the California attorney general's office in August 2021, a month after the Riverside County district attorney's office announced it would not file criminal charges against the off-duty officer.
When the California lawyer. Gen. Rob Bonta announced charges against Sanchez and said his office was doing so in accordance with the state Constitution, which allows him to file charges in cases where the law “is not adequately applied in any county.”
When charges were filed, Sanchez's attorney at the time, David Winslow, told the Times that his client was momentarily unconscious due to the fall and that the off-duty officer believed he was being killed. Sanchez also told investigators that he believed French had shot him.
The French were unarmed.
Paola French, with attorney Dale Galipo, left, her son Kevin French and attorney Eric Valenzuela, speaks at a news conference in Corona in 2019 following the shooting death of her son.
(Mel Melcón/Los Angeles Times)
“He believed he was protecting himself and his baby from being killed,” Winslow said at the time.
Police documents released about the encounter indicated that Sanchez was at least 20 feet from French when he began shooting, less than four seconds after French hit him.
Sanchez was fired from the Los Angeles police in 2020 after the Police Commission ruled that he violated department policy when he shot and killed French.
A 30-page report released by LAPD Chief Michel Moore found inconsistencies in Sanchez's account. Moore, in a statement, said Sanchez's actions “cannot be justified and are inconsistent with the Department's core values, training and expectations of every member of this organization.”
In October 2021, a federal jury awarded $17 million in damages to French's family and determined that Sanchez used excessive and unreasonable force in the shooting.
