Videos released Tuesday show the moment Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies shot and wounded a La Puente man who was experiencing a mental health crisis and who was holding a paint roller in his hand.
The man's attorneys released the video and said it will be crucial to a lawsuit the family plans to file against the county over the shooting.
The videos were released less than a week after officers shot Isael Orellana, 43, outside his home in the 600 block of Willow Avenue around 1:20 a.m. Friday. An attorney for Orellana's family said he was having a mental health episode and that he was carrying a metal paint roller, but the department described the roller as “a weapon.”
Officers told Orellana to drop the paint roller, but he refused, according to the department. They pepper sprayed him and when he raised the roller toward an officer, a deputy shot him, the sheriff's department said. He was hospitalized and survived the shooting.
The two videos of the incident, one taken by a nearby surveillance camera and another taken by someone at the scene, revealed the moments before the shooting when two responding officers pointed guns at Orellana as he walked down the driveway.
Both videos show Orellana standing a few feet from officers in the home's driveway while holding the paint roller. Family members can be seen and heard in the background crying and begging Orellana to sit down or come inside.
At one point in the video, Orellana takes a step toward the officers and raises the paint roller above his head. The deputies also take a step back, as the video shows. Orellana then walks further away from the officers, about 10 feet.
The video then shows an object thrown at the officers that appears to be the paint roller. Although Orellana is off-screen when the object is thrown, it comes from where he is standing.
The object hits one of the officers in the leg and rolls to the side. That officer fires three shots at Orellana while family members scream, the video shows.
“It's a brush. It's not like it's a knife or a rock,” said Ed Obayashi, deputy sheriff and policy advisor for the Modoc County Sheriff's Department and a use-of-force expert.
Obayashi, who viewed the videos, said the shooting “will appear much more unjustified to the public than other more violent confrontations in which officers are attacked with objects that would be considered deadly weapons, such as a knife or bat.”
Orellana's attorney, Damon Alimouri, said the officer shot Orellana for no reason.
“The Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies who were a part of this used excessive force and ultimately, without any justification, shot an unarmed man who at the end of the day had a sponge on a stick in his hand and was dealing with an episode of mental health.” Alimouri told the Times.
Alimouri filed a complaint with the county on Monday, and family members say they plan to sue the department for excessive force.
“Orellana did not commit any crime or harm anyone, the call was merely for help. Even though there was no emergency in progress, LASD officers arrived at Orellana's home and aggressively approached. [Orellana] that he was outside his home,” Alimouri wrote in the notice of claim shared with The Times.
Alimouri said Orellana's family had called police three times that day, but police only responded the third time.
Orellana, 43, is being held in the Men's Central Prison, Alimouri said. His family said he is still bleeding from the shooting.
Alimouri said Orellana was shot three times in the lower torso.
Alimouri said that although Orellana was supposed to be arraigned Tuesday on charges of assault on a law enforcement officer, prosecutors informed him he would be released without charges being filed.
A spokeswoman for the Prosecutor's Office confirmed that no charges were immediately filed against Orellana.
“The case was returned to authorities for further investigation,” Venusse Dunn said.
“The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department has not officially received this claim, but takes all officer-involved shootings seriously,” the sheriff's department said in a statement.
