A newly released video by the Los Angeles Police Department on Monday shows how a confrontation last month between a plainclothes police officer and an unarmed 18-year-old ended in a fatal shooting.
The family of Ricardo “Ricky” Ramirez Jr. recently announced that they will ask the state attorney to file criminal charges. They plan to sue the city for wrongful death.
Around 10:25 p.m. on July 13, Ramirez was in a silver Cadillac with three other occupants, all wearing ski masks. Sgt. Michael Pounds began following them. Authorities believed they were “in a possible dispute with the driver of another vehicle,” according to a department statement.
The video shows the Cadillac blocking the path of a Toyota Camry at 66th and Figueroa. The four occupants of the Cadillac exit the vehicle and surround the Camry. Other vehicles behind the Camry begin to back up before it speeds away.
“Follow that car because everyone was masked. Follow that car. Follow that car,” an officer says over the radio. A call is heard for an identified officer to stop the Cadillac.
Instead, Pounds — who was originally conducting a prostitution enforcement detail along Figueroa Street in South Los Angeles — followed the Cadillac for 10 blocks without lights or sirens until it came to a stop, blocking both lanes of traffic in the 400 block of 66th Street near the intersection with Flower Street.
The video shows Ramirez get out of the Cadillac and run to the driver's side door of Pounds' unmarked vehicle. Pounds immediately fires through the window, shooting Ramirez in the chest. Ramirez falls to the ground, crawls and collapses in the street.
Officers arrive and handcuff Ramirez before calling an ambulance and beginning CPR.
Police said in a July 18 statement that two passengers exited the Cadillac and approached Pounds' vehicle from either side, but only Ramirez is visible in the video.
“It is a father’s worst nightmare to hear that his son has been murdered, and now watching the video the horror gets worse: Ricky was shot in cold blood with both hands outstretched and clearly without a weapon,” Ramirez’s father, Ricardo Ramirez Sr., said in a statement.
“I watched my son be brought into this world and, horribly, I watched as a trigger-happy police officer took him from this world,” Ramirez’s mother, Renee Villalobos, said in the same statement.
The family's attorney, Christopher Dolan, said there was no reason for Pounds to shoot and that the officer never presented himself as a law enforcement officer. It was a “case of shoot and ask questions later,” Dolan said.
“We will aggressively prosecute this case to bring justice to Ricky and his family,” the attorney said.
The incident is still under investigation, according to the LAPD.
