The 32-year-old Navy veteran was holding a metal bar. The LAPD thought it was a machete. Jesse Murillo was shot dead.
Now the mother of the Canoga Park man will raise $24.45 million from the city of Los Angeles.
The settlement, approved Tuesday by the Los Angeles City Council, marks the final chapter in a shooting that the county district attorney's office decided in 2020 was legal. The Police Commission also determined that the use of deadly force was within LAPD policy.
But in August, a federal jury unanimously awarded Tammy Murillo $23.8 million, finding that officers Fred Sigman and Christopher Montague used excessive and unreasonable force in shooting her son. That award was one of the largest against the LAPD in the department's history.
The deadly incident occurred two days before Christmas 2017.
Police went to Murillo's Canoga Park home around 7:15 p.m. after a 911 call about a family disturbance; Murillo was said to have been involved in a physical altercation with his sister and had put his fiancé in a headlock.
The officer who first arrived on the scene reported, “The officer needs help. “Man armed with a machete.”
He believed Murillo was wearing a gas mask and holding a machete and hammer. Later evidence would show that he was not holding any of the objects, but was holding a 16.5-inch pull-up bar.
Sigman and Montague arrived to back up the first officer and the fatal shooting occurred. The two maintained they shot Murillo because they believed he was running in their direction while holding a hammer in his right hand and what they believed was a machete in his left hand, causing them to fear for their lives, according to the office's review. of the district attorney.
At the scene on Strathern Street, just west of De Soto Avenue, police found a hammer in Murillo's pocket and the drawbar next to his body.
According to the attorney who presented the case, Murillo tried to flee when he saw Sigman and Montague's police cruiser on the street at the end of the alley. As he ran, he turned sharply to the left and ran east on the sidewalk, the attorney said.
Attorneys for the Murillo family told the jury that Sigman and Montague fired seven shots at Murillo from the street without giving him adequate warning or time to comply. Four of those shots hit Murillo. They presented evidence at trial showing that the trajectory of the shots indicated that Murillo was not running directly toward the officers but was moving away from them when he was hit.
At least one of the shots was fired as Murillo headed toward the ground, attorney Dale Galipo said, showing jurors a video of the incident and an analysis of the bullets' trajectory. Some of the officers' stray bullets hit a nearby garage, a truck and a fence.
According to the district attorney's account of the deadly encounter, Murillo was about 50 feet from Sigman when he ran toward him while holding the pull-up bar above his head. Sigman said he yelled, “Hey, stop!” and he fired the first shot when Murillo came within about 22 feet.
Sigman fired five shots from his 9-millimeter pistol and Montague fired two shots from his .45-caliber pistol. As shots were fired, Murillo ran “eastward on the sidewalk adjacent to his police car before falling to the ground,” the district attorney's office said.
Concluding that the officers acted lawfully in the shooting, a deputy district attorney found in 2018 that Murillo ran toward Sigman but then veered, a slight change of direction in a rapidly evolving incident that still justifies the shooting as self-defense, since It is reasonable to believe that Murillo had a machete given the radio call from the other officer and because the drawbar would have caused serious injuries.
The Los Angeles Police Commission determined in 2018 that lethal use of force was within department policy, although commissioners questioned officers' tactics and found the incident warranted a “tactical report.”
After being shot on December 23, 2017, Murillo was conscious and speaking, but later died from his injuries at a hospital.
In determining their verdict in August, jurors agreed with Galipo and co-counsel Maro Burunsuzyan's argument that the use of deadly force was unnecessary because the situation did not immediately endanger the lives of the officers or No other person.
The jury awarded Tammy Murillo $6.5 million for pain and suffering prior to death, $5.3 million for loss of life and $12 million in damages for wrongful death.
The settlement comes as a growing number of cases are moving through the courts related to allegations of LAPD misconduct. According to City Comptroller Kenneth Mejía's payment tracking, from fiscal year 2020 to 2023, the city covered more than $125 million in claims against the LAPD.
